The Curse of Tinkerbell
by Alteng
Summary: What happens when the third Doctor gets bonked on the head with a teapot? Well, the other incarnations of the Doctor have to come to his rescue! R&R and enjoy! Finally completed!
1. Default Chapter

If you are reading this because it has been re-posted, the only changes is in the A/N.  
  
My friend Beth and I were really prolific 15 years ago, and that is about when this story was originally written. "The Trial of a Time Lord" was just about to air in England, and we had heard about Mel, but we had never seen any of the shows that she was in at that time. So, when in doubt, wing it!  
  
I don't really believe in writing a disclaimer at the beginning of these stories, because it is fanfiction. If we owned the rights, we wouldn't be posting the stories here. We'd be making money off of them. I am making an exception here, because there is a bit of a crossover for "All Creatures Great and Small". For those who have not seen the show, Peter Davison (The Fifth Doctor) plays the character Tristan in that show. That is where all the girls, that he calls on the phone in the course of this story come from.  
  
This story should answer many questions that have been boiling on Whovian minds . . . well, maybe not, but we were bad girls!!  
  
Chapter 1: Oh No, Not Again  
  
Carrying a heavily laden tea-tray, Jo trotted through the door of the Doctor's lab and called "Tea-time!" She didn't notice the cables and wires and tools and gadgets littering the laboratory floor; the Doctor was once again working on the TARDIS console, which he had removed from the TARDIS and which was no sitting in the middle of the room. It was unfortunate that she didn't notice this, for in the next instant, she tripped over the cable, and the tea-tray went flying. It was also unfortunate that she had called 'tea-time,' because the Doctor, had, at the sound of her voice, raised his head, upon which the teapot impacted. Wham went the teapot; clunk went the Doctor's head.  
  
Jo looked up from the corner, in which she was cringing. Oh no, not again, she thought and fought her way through the tangled mess of cables and wires and tools on the floor. "Are you okay, Doctor?" she asked timidly, but he did not respond, for he was profoundly unconscious. So, Jo fought her way back through the mess on the floor, calmly walked to the hall and screamed at the top of her lungs, "HELP!"  
  
The Doctor woke to find himself in UNIT sickbay, clad only in a short whit nightshirt. Ordinarily, this would have upset him very much, being the dandy he was, but it did not seem to bother him now. He bounced out of the bed and fluttered about the sickbay for a few moments, and then it occurred to him that he shouldn't be here at all; he was needed elsewhere. The Doctor got a bathrobe from a hook and a bottle of talcum powder from the nightstand, then he skipped out of the door.  
  
Jo crept nervously into the Doctor's sickroom to see how he was doing, but she was shocked to see an empty bed. "I wonder where he went," she wondered aloud. Looking out the window, she noticed a peculiar white clad figure sprinkling talc on the guards as he danced out the gates. "Oh no, not again!" she cried.  
  
A million, million, million, million miles away, on a small, boring, practically uninhabited planet called Gallifrey, a Time Lord scientist finish his report to the High Council.  
  
"Oh no, not again!" complained the Lord President. "I guess we've got to get him out of this one, too. What would we do without out favorite flunky?" He turned to the Castellan. "Call up one of the others and send him after the third Doctor."  
  
The Doctor and his companions, Jamie, Ben, and Polly, were preparing for their tea. "Did you wash your hands, Ben?" demanded the Doctor, glaring at Ben's grimy fingers. "Go wash them this instant!"  
"But, Doc, you know I can never find the bathroom on the TARDIS!" Ben protested.  
  
"That's no excuse, and besides, it's easy. You just go down the corridor 'till you pass the forty-seventh door on the right, then you turn left and go down that corridor 'till you meet the stairs, go up one flight and through the door at the top, pass ninety eight doors . . . "  
  
"Alright, alright, Doc, I'll find it," Ben cut in, "Be back in a minute."  
  
The Doctor suppressed a smile, as Ben closed the console room door behind him. Was it his fault that there weren't enough biscuits to go around.  
  
Suddenly, an alarm went off in the console room and several lights on the console, whose existence even the Doctor didn't know of, began to flash. "Oh crumbs!" the Doctor exclaimed and shoved his biscuit in his mouth. An image began to form on the screen; the Doctor recognized him by his robes the Castellan. "Oh double crumbs!" he mumbled, spewing biscuit crumbs all over the breakfast table. Polly drew back in disgust; Jamie continued to eat happily; this meant he would get the remaining biscuits for himself.  
  
"Greetings, Doctor," boomed the Castellan's voice officiously, "We have a little task for you . . ."  
  
"Go away!" replied the Doctor rudely, as he flipped switches, pushed buttons, pulled levers, and search fruitlessly for a way to erase the Castellan's face from the view screen.  
  
"ha," sneered the Castellan, "You have no choice in the matter, Doctor. One of your selves has gotten himself into trouble again, and his actions are threatening the very fabric of time itself!"  
  
"Oh no, not again!" Polly sighed, pulling out her nail file.  
  
"Which one?" the Doctor retorted, "Not . . ."  
  
"The very same."  
"Well, I won't have it! I'm not going to help that pompous, overbearing, arrogant, dainty little . . ."  
  
"As I said, Doctor, you have no choice in the matter. Your TARDIS console has been overridden, and you are now on your way to Earth. And by the way, if you need help, we can always send another self to help you." The Castellan smiled. "Ta-ta, Doctor." and faded from the screen.  
  
The Doctor muttered darkly to himself, while in the background, Polly and Jamie made bets on exactly how long it would be before the Doctor called for help.  
  
In the kitchen of the TARDIS, Romana was attempting to boil water for tea, which she did better than the Doctor did, but that wasn't saying much. K-9 attempted for the forty-ninth time to explain the mechanics of making tea. Just then, the kitchen door flew open and the Doctor flitted in. He stuck his hand in the sugar jar and flung a handful over Romana. She swung around, her blonde hair flying, with an icy Time Lady look on her face.  
  
"You can fly now, Romana!" exclaimed the Doctor cheerfully.  
  
"I think you are flying already," Romana replied.  
  
"It's magic pixie dust. Now you can fly!" the Doctor threw another handful of sugar at her.  
  
"Oh no, not again," Romana said disgusted, "K-9, stun him!" Zap went K-9, and the Doctor took a much needed nap. Romana stood over his unconscious body. Sometimes I wonder why I say with him," she muttered, as she brushed sugar from her hair. She set off to the console room to set the coordinates for Gallifrey.  
  
Turlough busied himself by throwing Froot-Loops at the Doctor, Nyssa, and teddy, who were watching "The Care Bears" attentively while having tea. The Doctor's idea of a good tea time snack was a bowl of Froot-loops, a mug of weak tea and afternoon cartoons, to which Turlough registered his disgust by throwing his food at the Doctor. Tegan, too, was tired of afternoon cartoons and "The Care Bears" in particular, so she crawled under the TV set and gave the cord a tug. The plug came out of the socket and "The Care Bears" went off. Turlough gave a sigh of relief. Suddenly a knock was heard at the TARDIS door, but the Doctor ignored it; he was frantically trying to plug the TV back in. The knock came again, and the Doctor called distractedly, "Turlough, get that, will you."  
  
Turlough glared at him, threw one final Froot Loop and slunked towards the door. Upon opening it, he moved to immediately close it again, because the knocker was the Master. Unfortunately, the master got in the door anyway and began, "Doctor . . ."  
  
"Shh!" replied the Doctor, "I'm busy." Nyssa shook her head sadly; "The Care Bears" was over. She snapped the TV set off.  
  
"Oh drat!" the Doctor said. "Now, what did you want?" His eyes widened with fear, as he realized that Turlough had let the Master into the TARDIS.  
  
"Doctor, I need your help!' the Master pleaded. "Your third self is driving me crazy!"  
  
"He always did that to me, too!" the Doctor replied, "have a seat, won't you?" The Doctor pulled out a chair covered with Froot-Loops and brushed them into his hand. he held them out to the Master and asked, "Care for some Froot-Loops?"  
  
The Master turned several shades of green and shook his head quickly. The Doctor sighed and dropped the Froot-Loops on the floor.  
  
"Turlough, clean up these up!" barked the Doctor. He turned to the Master, "You were saying . . ."  
  
"It seems that your third incarnation has been chasing me around, calling me Peter Pan, and telling me that we have to return to Never-never Land!:"  
  
The Doctor exclaimed, "Oh no, not again! But why don't you just kill him or something?"  
  
"That wouldn't be any fun!" protested the Master, "I just can't beat up a fairy."  
  
The Doctor replied, "Then why are you picking on my third incarnation anyway?"  
  
The master fell on his knees and threw his arms around the Doctor's ankles. He growled and begged, "You've got to help me! I can't . . ."  
  
"Wait a minute!" yelped the Doctor and tried unsuccessfully to pull his ankles free. He failed, over balanced, and fell on his behind. The Master crept closer, his eye full of pleading. the Doctor shrank away and stammered, "Now, you and my third incarnation might have a relationship going, but I don't want to get involved!"  
"Don't flatter yourself, Doctor!" The master replied indignantly. "I fear that your third self will accidentally kill himself before I get a chance to torture, mutilate, and humiliate and kill him, and then I would be depressed! So, here are the coordinates; he'd in England." With that the Master turned and left.  
  
"What are we going to do, Doctor?" Nyssa asked.  
  
"I guess we'll have to go and rescue him, Nyssa. he's in trouble and whatever happens to him ultimately happens to me. no wonder I had this terrible urge to click my heels together and say, 'There's no place like home.'"  
  
"Wrong story!" Tegan and Turlough yelled in unison.  
  
The Doctor shot them a dirty look, set the coordinates, and they were off.  
  
Grabbing his toolbox from the laboratory bench, the Doctor headed for the console room. On his way out the door, he met his latest companion and most sadistic companion, Melanie. Mel was a health food nut, and she not so delicately implied that the Doctor was fat! Consequently, she had put him on a diet and scoured the TARDIS from the top to bottom, destroying all junk food in her wake. At least, she believed that she had done this; the Doctor knew better. 


	2. Chapter 2: Strange Meetings

Chapter 2: Strange Meetings  
  
In the console room, Romana watched the time rotor judder to a halt. After returning to Gallifrey and learning the sketchy facts concerning the third Doctor's sudden disappearance, Romana had brought the TARDIS to England, Earth to assist in the search for the Doctor's third self. Thinking of her Doctor's stranger than usual actions, she wondered what could have happened to his earlier self to make him act this way. Considering it a moment, she decided that she really didn't want to know. Just then the Doctor walked slowly through the inner doors, gingerly rubbing the new bruise on his head. "I wonder where that came from," he mused, then he turned to Romana, "Where's tea?"  
  
Romana ignored him and operated the door lever, then she went to collect her hat. The Doctor marched out of the TARDIS angrily; he wanted his tea. Well, he thought, at least they had landed in England, where one could get a proper cup of tea. For the first time, the Doctor noticed his surroundings; he was on the roof of UNIT headquarters. The Doctor looked over the edge of the building; he had this terrible urge to go flying. Flapping his coat and preparing to jump, he was stopped by Romana, who suddenly leaped out of the TARDIS and yanked him back from the roof edge via his scarf.  
  
"But we must fly to Never-never Land!" he protested. She smacked his face several times. "Now, Romana, don't take your frustrations out on me! Is it my fault that you can't make a proper cup of tea? Well, it seems we're atop UNIT headquarters. We might as well pop down and visit my dear old friend the Brigadier.  
  
Romana shrugged. Next time, she mused, she'd hit him with something a bit harder, not that it would hurt anything between his ears. In her opinion, there was nothing there. She and K-9 followed the Doctor to the Brigadier's office.  
  
The Doctor was shocked to find a large well worn blue police box sitting in the Brigadier's office. At that moment, a funny little dark haired figure stepped out of the police box; the fourth Doctor stared at him in astonishment.  
  
"What are you doing here when I am here?!" asked the fourth Doctor.  
  
"I didn't call you! I called the cranky old senile man! What are you doing here?" the second Doctor demanded.  
  
"I asked first!"  
"I was here first!"  
  
"Shut up, both of you!" Romana yelled. taking control of the situation. Whent hte two Doctors calmed down, she turned to the little man. "Who are you?"  
  
"I am the Doctor, of course!" answered the second Doctor indignantly.  
  
"Which regeneration?"  
  
"First."  
  
Romana tried to decide whether the Doctor had improved or degenerated with age. And now she had to put up with three Doctors; it was more than she or any Time Lady could bear. Over coming her disgust, Romana explained her situation to the second Doctor, and he explained about the third Doctor. Romana looked skyward. Perhaps she would have been better off chased by the love starved Castellan than being involved in this mess! Turning to leave, they heard a screech from under the desk, "Oh Fluffy!"  
"Fluffy?" asked the fourth Doctor.  
  
The second Doctor pointed to the tail, that was sticking out from under the TARDIS. "Lethbridge-Stewart's late cat."  
  
  
  
In UNIT's car park, two TARDISes slowly materialized side by side, effectively blocking traffic. Two doors opened, two Doctors stuck their heads out the doors, and promptly pulled them back in. Leaning with his back braced against the outer door, the fifth Doctor's mind raced. "This couldn't possible be . . . " In the other TARDIS, the sixth Doctor, holding the door shut with his considerable weight, thought, "No, the chances are astronomical . . ."  
  
They flung the door open wide and found themselves face to face. The fifth Doctor looked the Sixth Doctor up and down. He began to snigger, but immediately stopped when he saw the look on the larger man's face. "Been Goodwill shopping, have we?" the fifth Doctor smarted unable to resist. he ducked the flying fist.  
  
Mel immediately jumped in between the two Doctors and began her mother routine. "Now, Doctor, aren't you ashamed of yourself, fighting with such a nice young man . . ."  
  
The fifth Doctor, now shielded by Mel, continued his heckling. "Oh, he brought his mommy with him!"  
  
The sixth Doctor calmly reached around Melanie and began to throttle the fifth.  
  
"You can't kill me!" gasped the fifth Doctor, turning several shades of blue. "If you kill me, you will only exist as a temporal tautology. If I die, you will never exist, and I can't kill by you then, so let me go!"  
  
The sixth Doctor smiled thinly; he was enjoying himself. "That's only your theory; let's call this research!"  
  
By now Tegan had entered the fray. She walked up to the sixth Doctor and kicked him in the shin with her pointy high heeled shoes. He promptly let go of the fifth Doctor's throat and grabbed his injured leg and hopped around yelling "Ouch!!" Nyssa and Mel tried to calm the group down, but Turlough yelled, "Shut up, Nyssa!" Mel walked over to where he stood belligerently and decked him. She looked at his unconscious body. "That's no way to talk to a lady," she remarked mildly.  
  
After forming an uneasy alliance, the two Doctors with their companions, all except Turlough, set off for UNIT headquarters to consult the Brigadier. Turlough, they left lying next to the TARDISes. "But, is that a good place to leave your TARDISes?" Nyssa inquired, boring as ever.  
  
"Oh the contrary, Nyssa, nobody will bother them here. And, at least, we will be able to find them later," answered the fifth Doctor.  
  
"But what about Turlough?"  
  
"What about Turlough?" everyone asked in unison.  
  
"Besides the fact that he's mean, nasty, rotten, and he smells . . ." Tegan added.  
  
Everyone nodded assent. They turned to leave. Entering UNIT headquarters, they walked into a group leaving. Four different voices uttered the identical curse in Venusian. Romana got an inkling of what was going on and turned to the fourth Doctor. "Doctor, I'd like to go back to Gallifrey NOW!!" she said warningly.  
  
"Now, now, not while things are getting interesting . . ."  
  
Romana uttered a few curses of her own in a few interesting languages she knew. All four Doctors turned to her in astonishment. "Romana! I didn't know you knew such words!"  
  
They stood there looking at each other and wondering what the heck to do, when an overly familiar noise commenced and a ridiculously familiar shape appeared. An old man, followed by a young girl, and a very strange young man with a teddy bear, emerged. "Hello, I'm the Doctor," the old man began. Romana shrieked and fell to the floor in a state of catatonia. The fourth Doctor frowned.  
  
"Well, I'm surprise to see that you all made it here on time. Now, I've got this magnificent plan . . ."  
  
"What took you so long?" the second Doctor demanded.  
  
"Oh, you see," replied Vicki, "We've been on the edge of destruction!"  
  
"Nevermind that, Vicki," the first Doctor said, "Now the first order of business is to locate this young fellow, who's been picking wild flowers and such . . ."  
  
"He does that when he's normal!" objected the fourth Doctor.  
  
"Well . . ." the first Doctor continued.  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, the fifth Doctor spied a young woman, peeping around the corner. He sauntered over casually. "Hey, baby," he crooned, "What's your sign?" Jo came out of hiding and the Doctor recognized her. He sighed. Sometimes, he just couldn't get a break. Then he had a great idea. "Hello," the fifth Doctor exclaimed, "Maybe Jo can help us out."  
  
"Me?" said Jo nervously leaving her hiding place, "I didn't do anything!" Jo stopped and looked incredulously around at the scene that met her eyes. There was a man in a dress, several women in various states of undress, five very strange men (some stranger than others), a woman on the floor (which no one paid any attention to), and a young man talking intently with a teddy bear.  
  
"Och, Doctor," said Jamie suddenly, "I thought ye said this was a military installation. Where be all the soldiers then?"  
  
"Well," said Jo, "I can tell you that. Some of them are on the roof, trying to get the police box off of it. Some are in the parking lot trying to move the two police boxes blocking traffic. Some are trying to move the police box out of the Brigadier's office and off of his cat. The rest are trying to get the Brigadier out from under his desk. And here's another police box! I don't know whose idea of a practical joke this is, but it isn't funny anymore!"  
  
"My TARDIS!!" five voices cried out in unison.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"I'm the Doctor!" they all said together, then glared angrily at one another.  
  
The companions sighed, "Here we go again!" they chorused.  
  
Mel took charge; her fondest fantasy was to be a drill sergeant. "Well, as near as I can make out, they're all the Doctor. Let's see now, this is Doctor number . . . " she said motioning to her Doctor.  
  
"Six," he replied sourly.  
  
"He's the baby," crooned the fourth Doctor.  
  
"At least, I didn't bring my toys with me!" the sixth Doctor replied pointedly looking at K-9.  
  
Mel crossed to the other curly haired Doctor. "And you're Doctor number . . ."  
  
"Terrific!" the fourth Doctor replied with a wide grin.  
  
"Snut!"  
  
"Wimp!"  
"Cut it out!" Mel yelled grabbing the fourth Doctor's arm and twisting it savagely.  
  
"Four!" he yelped.  
  
Mel moved to the blonde Doctor, wearing the cricket clothes. "You're Doctor . . ."  
  
"Five!" he volunteered quickly, not wanting his arm twisted. After all, he's seen her deck Turlough.  
  
Mel smiled; she liked a man who knew his place. She moved to the short comival looking man. "Doctor number . . ."  
  
"Two," he replied cringing slightly. he was of the same opinion as the fifth Doctor.  
  
Mel moved to the last Doctor, the white haired old man. "And you are?"  
  
"I, my dear, am the original Doctor. Number one, you might say," he answered proudly.  
  
"Hmm," Mel said doubtfully.  
  
Tegan came out of the crowd, dragging Nyssa with her. She went over to greet the fourth Doctor, who had gotten her in her in this trouble in the first place. "It's all your fault!" she cried.  
  
The fourth Doctor backed away quickly. He had seen charging bulls who look that way. "Do I know you?" he inquired politely.  
  
"Doctor! You are the one who got me into this mess in the first place, and now you act as though you don't know me!"  
"Ah, that's because I don't, not yet anyway. But don't get upset. Have a jelly baby." He proffered a crumpled brown bag.  
  
It was the moment the sixth Doctor had been waiting for; he was starving! He dove at the fourth Doctor, grabbed the bag, and began stuffing jelly babies into his mouth. Mel freaked and tried to pull them away from him, but she saw the murder in his eyes and backed away.  
  
"Oh, my poor fellow, what has she been doing to you?" the fourth Doctor asked gently, kneeling next to the prone Doctor.  
  
"She's starving me to death!!" he blubbered, overcome with the fact that he'd finally actually gotten to eat something after all these weeks.  
  
While this was going on, Polly sauntered over to the first Doctor. "Hello, Doctor. Fancy meeting you here! Ben's here, too, but he's otherwise occupied at the moment . . ."  
  
The first Doctor looked strangely at Polly. "I don't know you, young woman. I don't believe we have met yet. And who's your girlfriend over there?" he asked motioning to Jamie.  
  
"Och! I'm not lassie!" Jamie shouted belligerently. "I'll teach ye to make fun o' me, old man or no!' he prepared to beat the old man up.  
  
The other Doctors raced to the old man's aid. Killing him wouldn't be hard, and as much as they would like to see him dead, if he died now, none of them would exist. Reluctantly, they restrained Jamie.  
  
"Neanderthal!" the first Doctor spluttered.  
  
The second Doctor said. "But all this is not the point; we've got to find the fairy. He turned to Jo. "No offense, dear. I realize that you've got to live with him, but then that's not my fault."  
The rest of the Doctors nodded. The second Doctor volunteered reluctantly. "I think I may know where he is . . ."  
  
"Lead the way. boy," the first Doctor said imperiously, pointing with his cane.  
  
"I'll stay here in case he comes back," the fifth Doctor volunteered.  
  
"Chicken!" the other four Doctors called. The fifth Doctor didn't care; he had important calls to make. Ducking into the nearest office, he picked up the phone and said, "Darrowby 27, please . . . Hello, is Kitty there?"  
  
In the hallway, the four Doctors looked down at the prone body of Romana. "Oh well, I guess I'll carry her," the fourth Doctor sighed.  
  
"You've got it. We're not touching her. The woman is vicious!" the second Doctor said.  
  
The sixth Doctor nodded knowingly. "Although, I'll trade you companions if you like," he offered the fourth Doctor.  
  
"No thanks," replied the fourth Doctor, flinging Romana over his shoulder. "Good grief! She's going to have to lay off the jelly babies!" They proceeded out the door, the companions in tow. Because they all couldn't fit into Bessie, they waited for the bus. Mel was forced to pay all their fares. The Doctors, as usual, were stiffing their companions. Mel, being the newest companion, still had money, but not for long.  
  
"How much?!" 


	3. Chapter 3: She Loves Me, She Loves Me No...

Chapter 3: She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not  
  
The Master hid nervously behind a tree, avoiding the third Doctor, who sat in the grove busily making daisy chains. The Master was exasperated; he'd stooped so low as to actually beg another one of the Doctor's selves for help, and the wimp didn't show up! He shifted his position and accidentally stepped on a twig which snapped. It was the tiniest of noises, but the third Doctor heard it, jumped up and found the Master's hiding place. He dragged the Master out from the tree gleefully and hugged him enthusiastically. "Peter Pan, you've come!" he cried out, then he began decking him with daisy chains. The third Doctor turned to fetch the talc for the crowning touch, and the Master took the opportunity to run like hell. The third Doctor turned and pounded after him. He jumped the Master. He glared angrily into the dark Time Lord's face. "It's that Wendy girl, isn't it?" he demanded belligerently.  
  
"Help," squeaked the Master.  
  
The rescue party was still trudging through the woods. In fact, Tegan was beginning to suspect that they were lost. Especially when they passed the same tree the fifteenth time. So, Tegan did what came naturally to her, considering the circumstances: she yelled "You stupid incompetent @#$%&*!!! We've been walking in circles for hours; we're utterly lost, and IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!!!"  
  
The companions agreed totally; they had been with their Doctors long enough to know that they couldn't find their way out of a wet paper bag.  
  
"I thought you knew where you were going," said the sixth Doctor menacingly.  
  
The second Doctor looked towards the first Doctor for help; it seemed that all his later selves wanted to do was to beat the heck out of him. The old man was little help; he was busy leaning against a tree, gasping for breath, exhausted as usual. Lot of help he was.  
  
"Doctor," Nyssa began, "Ahem, Doctors," she called louder, "K-9 doesn't seem to be working very well."  
  
"Oh, it's just that his batteries are dead; he has a built in circuit that causes his batteries to die, when there is the slightest hint of trouble, therefore giving us a reason to have a story," the sixth Doctor explained reasonably.   
  
"That figures," snapped Polly, "Look at the old Doctor though. I think his batteries are dead too."  
  
The first Doctor was too tired to make a snide remark.  
  
"I'll stay behind with him and K-9. I think I can fix at least one of them," Nyssa offered. The old man's eyes lit up.  
  
"Very well," agreed the sixth Doctor, "I give you my permission."  
  
"Ahem!" Mel cleared her throat loudly. The sixth Doctor cringed slightly. Much better," she said, approving of his deference. "Now, I think we should get going." Mel looked around, "Hey, where's the smart ass?"  
  
"Hey! I asked you not to call me names in public," the sixth Doctor protested.  
  
"Not you, stupid. The one with the scarf. He's gone."  
  
Hanging over the Doctor's shoulder, Romana woke to see the Doctor's backside. Worse than that, she felt a certain Time Lord's hands on her backside. She promptly shrieked, "Doctor!"  
"Ah," the Doctor replied quickly, "Romana, you're awake!"  
  
"PUT ME DOWN!!" Romana snarled.  
  
"Now, now, Romana" the fourth Doctor said nervously, "I think it is time we caught up with the rest of the group, don't you?" He turned and ran.  
  
Romana stood there glowering. For this, she thought, he would die. She contemplating by what method she would torture him first, when a long arm reached out and grabbed her around the waist, yanking her into the trees.  
  
"I've got you now, Wendy, you slut!" shouted the third Doctor.  
  
"Excuse me?" Romana replied, staring at the very tall white haired man in a very short nightshirt.  
  
"Trying to steal Peter Pan away from me!"  
  
"Is that him over there?" Romana asked, pointing at the swarthy man in black clothes, wearing daisy chains, covered in talcum powder, and tied firmly to a tree with a bathrobe sash.  
  
"Yes, and I love him. And he's mine! All mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!" the third Doctor cried out, "You can't have him!" He stuck his tongue out at her.  
  
"I don't want him," Romana replied, shuddering slightly. She gave the white clad figure an appraising look, then turned to the bond gagged figure. "Is this the third Doctor?" she queried.  
  
The tied up man nodded dumbly. "Thank you," she replied politely. Picking up a large stone, she bashed the third Doctor over the head.  
  
"Ouch!" he cried out and fell unconscious.  
  
Across the forest, a little way off, yet still hopelessly lost, the rescue group was still bored, listening to Mel lecture the fourth Doctor on lagging behind without permission. The fourth Doctor himself was busily playing with his yo-yo.  
  
"Doctor, are you listening to me?" Mel demanded.  
  
"Yes, of course, I am Mel," the fourth Doctor replied, practicing his triple decker, super-duper, backward, forward, around the world, loop-to-loop trick and tying seventeen knots in his yo-yo string simultaneously, "Oh fudge!" he exclaimed.  
  
"Fudge! Where?" cried the sixth Doctor excitedly. Mel rolled her eyes in despair, then motioned for the group to move on.  
  
Suddenly the fourth and sixth Doctors stopped dead and yelped in unison, "Ouch!" They turned immediately on one another and began accusing. The sixth Doctor barked, "You stupid scarecrow of a . . ." Mel gave him a sharp look. "How dare you hit me in the back of the head with that childish yo-yo of yours!"  
  
"Me hit you?" the fourth Doctor replied savagely. "Why you reject from a traveling flea bag circus, I've got half a mind to . . ."  
"I'm not sure if you have half a mind underneath that ill kept rat nest, that you laughingly refer to as hair . . ." shouted the sixth Doctor.   
  
They circled one another, preparing for a knock down drag out fight of the century, when suddenly snickers reached their ears. Both Doctors turned to see their second self laughing at them and jointly decided that beating each other would be quite enjoyable, but abusing their second self would be much more fun. The second Doctor saw the murder in their eyes and promptly stopped snickering and hid behind Mel. Mel screamed for the Doctors to stop and decided that in the in best interest of keeping everyone happy and alive, they would split up and comb the woods for the third Doctor, so they could get this crazy story over with.  
  
Back at UNIT headquarters, the fifth Doctor was fast running out of phone numbers in his little black book. "Ouch!" he suddenly screeched into the receiver. "No, wait, Alice. It's not you. No, don't hang up!"  
  
Click! The fifth Doctor sighed, "Oh well," and absentmindedly rubbed the sore spot on the back of his head. He began flipping through the black book once more, and picked up the phone and dialed. "Darrowby 47, please . . . Hi, Lucy!"  
  
  
Romana began undoing the last knot that held the strange dark man to the tree, all the while muttering dark curses concerning the lingering, horrible, painful deaths that she would inflict upon the Doctor once she got a hold of him. A sudden nerve shattering thought entered her head. She stopped untying and looked hard at the man.  
  
"You wouldn't be by any wild chance the seventh Doctor, would you?" Romana queried, hoping with every fiber of her being that he wasn't.  
  
"My dear, I positively the farthest thing from it!" replied the Master dreamily. "Might I ask your name, my lovely lady?"  
  
Romana gave him a smarmy look. "My name is Romanadvortrelundar, and as long as you're not another Doctor . . ." She bent down and undid the last knot. The Master stood up, tore the daisy chains off, and made a dashing bow to Romana. Now that he could see her better, she was more beautiful than ever. Ever since he heard that first beautiful curse fall from her lips, he knew that this was the woman he had been waiting for. Now, watching Romana standing over the third Doctor contemplating how best to torture him, so that the fourth Doctor would feel it, the Master was certain that he was in love.  
  
"By the way," Romana turned back to the Master, "If you're not the seventh Doctor, who are you?"  
  
The master smiled seductively, "I am the Master, the most evil, despicable, and vicious Time Lord in the known universe! "  
  
"I'll debate that," Romana replied cattily, thinking of one certain Doctor. She turned back to the prone Doctor and kicked him hard. "Will he never wake up?"  
  
Just then the Doctor woke to find himself in the middle of a forest in a very short nightshirt, covered with talc, flanked by a nice looking young woman and the Master! He blushed deeply, realizing how naked he was, and made a wild grab for the bathrobe, conveniently hanging on a nearby twig. Then in an attempt to cover his embarrassing predicament, the third Doctor jumped up and grabbed the Master around the neck, and acted like he intended to do this all along.  
  
"Well, I've caught him now. I imagine that all this fuss is his fault. We'll just take him back to UNIT then," the third Doctor declared with all the false bravo he could muster.  
  
Romana sighed. At least the Doctor was back to normal, well, as normal as defined in the Doctor's case, but she was distinctly unhappy with the Doctor's decisions to bring the Master along with them. She was beginning to believe that the Master was a little more than enamored of her, and three times in one day was more than she could take.  
  
The sixth Doctor and Tegan hit it off immediately; their fashion sense provided a ground for a lively discussion. They happily discussed the latest punk fashions from Paris, while they made their way to UNIT's cafeteria, Vicki in tow. It was the Doctor's idea to return to UNIT for lunch - - refueling his brain he called it. Well, thought Vicki, eyeing the girth that was held in by the perilously tight waistcoat, if that was the gas tank, they would be in UNIT all day filling it up. But, remembering the sixth Doctor's giant economy size and predilection to senseless violence, she keep her mouth shut and trudged dutily through the woods behind the chattering pair.  
  
The third Doctor, Romana, and the still fawning Master, following Romana's heels like a love starved puppy, reached UNIT before the sixth Doctor and Company, because they chose to ride the bus back to UNIT HQ. Romana graciously allowed the Master to pay their fare due to the sheer fact that she had given all her change to the fourth Doctor to put in the bubble gum machines in the grocery store. The Master wasn't insulted. In fact, he was wildly ecstatic to do anything for Roman, the woman of his dreams. Upon entering the UNIT main building, the Doctor rashly excused himself to get dressed into something less revealing. The third Doctor picked his way carefully through the still littered laboratory floor and slipped into his TARDIS to find more appropriate clothing. Romana waited outside the laboratory door. The Master knelt before her and spouted love poetry to her. Romana rolled her eyes. Perhaps, she mused, she should have left him tied to a tree. On further thought, she decided that she should have bashed the Master over the head with the rock instead of the Doctor. The Master grabbed her hand and ardently began to cover it with passionate kisses. Romana objected violently to this. She lashed out and kicked him hard. The Master groveled in ecstasy. "Our first lover's spat! Oh, do it again!" he pleaded.  
  
Romana looked down at the man lovingly embracing her ankles. She gave a martyred look and sighed, "Why me?!"  
  
The Master had partially regained his composure. He plucked a stray daisy from his hair and began playing, "she loves me, she loves me not" with it. Romana fervently hoped that the Doctor would soon return and get this maniac off of her hands and her ankles.  
  
By now, the sixth Doctor and Tegan and Vicki had arrived at the UNIT cafeteria and were having tea at last. Well, tea and biscuits and sandwiches and cake and pie and . . . In between bites, Tegan and the sixth Doctor were discussing how best to return the third Doctor to normalcy or whatever passed for it in this specific regeneration. As Jo had explained that the Doctor's problem was caused by a teapot to the head ("O, that's what I felt!" exclaimed the sixth Doctor at this bit of news.), the general consensus the best way to undo Jo's mistake was to hit him again. Tegan and the sixth Doctor were now discussing which of them would get the honors of bashing the third Doctor, and Vicki could see that the discussion would soon be a violent argument. She returned to her tea and made a mental note never to complain about Steven and the first Doctor again.  
  
The third Doctor descended the stairs at that moment, in all his ruffled splendor, into the cafeteria; being a fairy was hard work, and he was hungry. Besides, he hadn't had any tea. Romana trailed him. The Master trailed after her. Romana suddenly realized she did not know what the third Doctor planned to do now and decided to ask him. "Doctor?" she called.  
  
Vicki looked up suddenly. Doctor, who, where, was this the Doctor they were looking for? She tugged frantically at the sixth Doctor's sleeve, but he was busy stuffing his face and arguing with Tegan. he ignored her. So, Vicki decided she had to do it. He had to be the one that they were looking for. There couldn't possibly be any more Doctors. She snatched up her tray and bashed the silly dressed white haired man. He fell semi-conscious. Romana shrieked, "No! No!" She certainly didn't want to go through this all over again. Vicki misunderstood her meaning and turned to the black clad man and bashed him harder, breaking the tray in the process.  
  
The sixth Doctor and Tegan barely noticed, but Romana was peeved. She stalked over to the arguing pair and loudly joined in, trying to get their attention. so that she could explain. Vicki's attention was on the man, upon whose head she had shattered the tray. By now, the third Doctor had regained consciousness, and grabbing a salt shaker, he cried, "Fly, be free! to a group of soldiers. They ignored him, and he fluttered out the door, Tinkerbell once more.  
  
At this, the sixth Doctor, Tegan, and Romana looked up and cried, "Oh no, not again!" And Vicki cried, "I'm confused! Who's this?"   
  
"Nevermind," Romana answered, "He's not important. By the way, I owe you one." 


	4. Chapter 4: K9's Special Purpose

Chapter 4: K-9's Special Purpose  
  
Out in the forest, Jo was wondering aimlessly; she was totally and utterly lost, as usual. Somewhere else in the forest, the first Doctor's eyes were still lit up. Considering what Nyssa was wearing, she wouldn't have to waggle his tail to turn him on. Nyssa was still baffled about K-9. She tried to remove the automatic kill-the-battery circuit, but she was unable to charge his batteries, mainly because there was still a story to be resolved. Nyssa scrambled to her feet wonderingly, when suddenly, a daintily dressed man came skipping along the path and tripped over the inert K-9. The man crashed head first into a nearby tree and slipped to the ground, unconscious once again. K-9's eyes suddenly lit up; now that he had played his role in the story, his batteries automatically recharged themselves. The first Doctor looked at Nyssa triumphantly. "Congratulations, my dear. You've cured my third self. Now, we must get him back to UNIT."  
  
  
  
The fourth Doctor sat on a rock on the edge of the woods, where he had been for the last hour, trying desperately to undo the seventeen knots in his yo-yo string, that he had acquired from doing his world famous triple-decker, super-duper, backward forward, around-the-world, loop-to-loop trick. Suddenly he stood up and whirled around to face his unwilling disgruntled companions Polly, Steven, and the Mascot. "Don't hit me! This is important work!"  
Steven turned to the Mascot. "Did you do that, Mascot?"  
  
The fourth Doctor shook his head. He couldn't fathom how he, in any of his incarnations, could have picked up such a mental reject as this.  
  
The fifth Doctor was running up a very large long-distance phone bill. Good thing that he had the Brigadier's charge card, he thought. He was currently trying to pick up Debbie- - a one time girlfriend from Darrowby. "Come on, Debbie; live a little! We'll go for dinner, go back to my place, then who can tell?" Click! It was time to go leafing through his little black book again, but before he could find another number, he suddenly screeched, "OUCH!!" he spun his chair around, expecting to find Turlough behind him; he mused aloud, "I wonder who keeps doing that?"  
  
Back at the cafeteria in UNIT HQ, Tegan had decided they should go after the third Doctor. She was tired of watching the sixth Doctor eat, but he showed no sign of ever stopping. he was beginning his fifth eclair when Tegan's patience snapped.  
  
"Quit stuffing your face, and let's get going!" The Doctor totally ignored her. He had two more eclairs to go/ She stamped her feet in impatience. Then suddenly, the sixth Doctor cried out through a mouthful of eclair, "Ouch! Tegan, stop that! I'm coming already!"  
Tegan turned around. She hadn't hit him, but she wished she had thought of it. The Doctor grabbed the remaining eclairs and shoved them into his pockets. Tegan, Romana, Vicki, and the Doctor left. Romana made sure they left the still unconscious Master behind.  
  
Although she realized that the group's splitting up had been for the best, Mel could not figure out how she had gotten the short end of the stick. She had decided to take the second Doctor with her, because he seemed in dire need of direction and he took orders well, but, unfortunately, this knobby kneed man in a skirt had immediately insisted on tagging along and could not be persuaded otherwise. Since he was bigger than she was, she graciously accepted his company. Mel was forced to take charge, as the second Doctor seemed incapable of going anywhere but around in circles, but even under her charge, they were unable to find the smallest trace of the third Doctor. After some hours, Jamie decided that it was time to stop searching for the third Doctor and start searching for food. naturally, being the subtle soul he was, he loudly voiced his stomach's opinion.  
  
"Ah'm starved! Doctor, I think it is time to go back to that UNIT place and grub up some food."  
  
"Now, now, Jamie," Mel responded, "You can't give up now. Why the third Doctor could be lying in a ditch somewhere injured or even worse. Would you want that guilt on your head?"  
  
"Ah would like some grub in ma stomach, is what Ah'd like!" Jamie growled.  
  
Mel gave him a disapproving look and searched her pockets for a bag of trail mix or some raisins. She came up with two homemade granola bars, whose main ingredient looked like sawdust. She offered them to the second Doctor and Jamie. "Here, this should keep you from starving to death."  
  
The second Doctor took his obediently. He bit into it and lost a front tooth. He looked at it in amazement and put it in his pocket in case he needed it to defend himself from wild animals. Jamie looked at his in amazement also. Did she actually expected to eat this?  
  
"Oh well, if you don't want to eat your granola bar now, put it in your pocket for later," Mel mothered.  
  
"Mel, Ah'll tell ye where ye should put it . . ." Jamie began.  
  
Elsewhere in the forest, the third Doctor, having now regained full consciousness, decided he and present company should go back to UNIT. As they began the long walk back to UNIT compound, the third Doctor got the feeling of deja vu. It seemed to him that he had done this before, and a nagging feeling told him that he would be doing it again and again and again. The going was slow due to the fact first Doctor had to stop and rest every two minutes. The third Doctor's patience began to wear thin. The first Doctor had apprised the third Doctor of the presence of his four other selves in search of him. the third Doctor felt it was urgent to hurry back to UNIT and show the other Doctor that the problem was solved and get rid of them. The third Doctor was also worried about the Brigadier; considering the problem he'd had with the idea of two Doctors, the third Doctor shuddered to think of the Brigadier's reaction to six! Besides that, the third Doctor had to go to the bathroom, so he doubled his pace, leaving the once again exhausted first Doctor, Nyssa helping him and K-9, batteries once again failing, far behind.  
  
At the edge of the woods, the fourth Doctor gave up disgusted. He had spent the better part of two hours working on the knots in his yo-yo string to no avail. Polly was also quite disgusted; she had done her nails six times already and was thoroughly bored. Only Steven was unconcerned. He was having an animated conversation with the Mascot. But then again, he could an animated conversation with a brick. The fourth Doctor got up quietly, motioning for Polly to follow him back to the TARDIS to get his spare yo-yo, hoping to steal away and leave Steven behind.  
  
They crept along for about twenty minutes, not daring to look back in the hopes that Steven had gotten lost. Suddenly a voice shattered the stillness. "Doctor, the Mascot wants to know where we are going?"  
  
The Doctor and Polly jumped about three feet, and the Doctor cursed fluently in seventeen alien tongues. He turned to Steven and wagged his eyebrows furiously. If only Steven or the Mascot knew Delphon, they certainly would have beaten him to bits. Unable to rid themselves of Steven, the fourth Doctor and Polly ignored him instead, as they commenced their walk to the TARDIS.  
  
Back at UNIT, the sixth Doctor, Vicki, Tegan, and Romana were heading back to the woods again, but were halted in the parking lot bay Tegan, who suddenly announced, "I have some business to take care of in the TARDIS . . ."  
  
The sixth Doctor looked blank. What could she possibly want? Romana noticed his look and said warningly, "Don't ask, just let her in!"  
  
Suddenly it dawned on him. "Why didn't you go before we left? UNIT has toilets, too, you know," he complained mother-like.  
  
"Hmph! You have been hanging around Mel too long. She's rubbed off on you. Besides, the toilets at UNIT are grody! Let me in the TARDIS!" Tegan demanded. "Now, wait here and don't leave me. I'll be right out." The sixth Doctor opened the fifth Doctor's TARDIS. Tegan paused a moment. She walked over the still unconscious body of Turlough, now surrounded by orange traffic cones and kicked him hard in the head.. Turlough didn't react. Tegan nodded in satisfaction and strutted into the TARDIS leaving the door opened. They waited for fifteen minutes, when suddenly the fourth Doctor appeared, whistling filthy Venusian barroom tunes, followed by a reluctant Polly and Steven, who was playing Superman with the Mascot. Polly turned to see this and sighed. One played with a yo-yo and the other with a teddy bear. Was there any intelligent life left on Earth?  
  
The fourth Doctor saw the sixth Doctor and companions loitering about the TARDISes, and as he was in a nasty frame of mind, made a nasty remark.  
  
"Look, kids; it's the Goodyear blimp!" he said poking the sixth Doctor in the tummy.  
  
The sixth Doctor sneered back. He might not be taller, but he was bigger and certainly meaner. The sixth Doctor noticed the yo-yo in the fourth Doctor's hands and made a rude remark. "Baby broke his toy?"  
  
The fourth Doctor quickly hid the yo-yo behind his back and tried to act nonchalant. "Hmph! Actually, we came back for an important piece of equipment we needed that's in the TARDIS," he lied.  
  
"Oh, what's that?" asked the sixth Doctor sardonically.  
  
"Well, it's . . . the ah . . . lateral rectifying . . . um . . . gravity adjuster . . . um . . . Whatmahiggy!" the fourth Doctor bullshitted.  
  
"Oh sure; right," the sixth Doctor replied. Polly and Romana snickered with him. Vicki was too dim to realize that the Doctor was full of it, and Steven was otherwise occupied.  
  
It was then that the fourth Doctor noticed Romana. "Hullo, Romana," he said amiably. "Goodbye, Romana," and nipped into the TARDIS.  
  
Romana leaned into the opened door, "Doctor," she hissed, "this isn't our TARDIS!"  
  
"Our TARDIS! Our TARDIS?! Since when did my TARDIS become YOUR TARDIS?!" he shouted, "Besides," he added in a lower tone, "this is the fifth Doctor's TARDIS. I'm bigger than him. I am taller than him. I can beat the shit out of him. Therefore, I can go into his TARDIS if I want to. And I want to!" He slammed the door in Romana's face.  
  
"But Tegan's in there," she added sweetly, knowing how well the fourth Doctor loved Tegan. He couldn't hear her, but Romana wished she could hear him when he found out.  
  
The third Doctor came rushing through UNIT's gates leaving Nyssa, K-9, and the first Doctor five miles behind. Passing through the car park, the third Doctor noticed the TARDISes, sitting in the middle of traffic, a group of strange people, surrounding them, and an unconscious young man on the ground, surrounded by orange cones. He took another look to make sure he was not hallucinating, then he continued to UNIT's main building in search of tyhe little boy's room.  
  
Ten minutes later, much relieved, the third Doctor returned to the car park to see what was going on and see if he couldn't stick his nose into it. He recognized Polly, Vicki, Steven, and unfortunately the Mascot, all the companions of his earlier incarnations. He did not know the unconscious youth on the ground. He also didn't know the blonde young woman, leaning against one of the TARDISes with an evil grin on her face. So, that only left the bizarrely dressed fool about whom the third Doctor had a sinking feeling he knew all too well who he was.  
  
The third Doctor looked the sixth Doctor up and down. "Okay," he asked, "when did I go insane?"  
  
"Right after I turned into Tinkerbell!" the sixth Doctor bawled.  
  
Groans of disgust came from the companions' mouths. This was a truly low blow. They all looked around for good seats to view the massacre.  
  
"I suppose you'd be afraid to throw a punch at me. Might break a fingernail!" the sixth Doctor taunted.  
  
"Alright, alright! Where's another one of myselves? I refuse to deal with a mental defective," the third Doctor demanded. He wanted the sixth Doctor to end his taunts; they were bruising his delicate feelings.  
  
Inside the fifth Doctor's TARDIS, the fourth Doctor reached under the console and popped open yet another secret compartment. He took the object out of it, removed his hand and studied his find with admiration.  
  
"My Duncan Butterfly yo-yo!" he exclaimed, "I'd forgotten I'd put it there. If I could find a penlight battery, it would light up! Now, where would the wimp keep the batteries, I wonder." He wandered the corridors and began opening doors at random. He opened seven or eight doors when an ear-shattering shriek pierced his ear drums.   
  
"Doctor, what do you think you are doing? Get out of here!!" Tegan screamed.  
  
The Doctor had inadvertently wandered into Tegan and Nyssa's bedroom, where Tegan sat at her vanity in her underwear, doing her makeup. When Tegan had told the sixth Doctor that she had something to attend to in the TARDIS, she had meant a shower, a hair wash, a manicure, a re-do of her makeup, three loads of laundry, and two hours of soaps. After all, she couldn't miss The Young and the Restless: Rick was in the hospital, desperately ill, and Jessica, his wife, was pregnant with John's, his boss', baby, but John had a contract out on him . . . Thus, when the fourth Doctor entered the room and disturbed her in the middle of her important business in her unmentionables, Tegan reacted naturally by throwing at him anything she could get her hands on, which at the moment were Nyssa's things: Nyssa's curlers, Nyssa's shoes, Nyssa's gerbil cage (gerbil included). The fourth Doctor backed out quickly, ducking all sorts of flying objects. Tegan grabbed her house coat and chased after him, still throwing things, stooping every once and awhile to snatch up Turlough's junk, lying in the corridor to use as ammunition on the fourth Doctor.  
  
Outside of the TARDIS, the sixth Doctor had had enough of the third Doctor's arrogance and decided he would start by breaking the latter's fingernails and moving up from there. He advanced on the quivering third Doctor, who hid his hands behind his back and retreated between the TARDISes in fear.  
  
At that moment, inside the fifth Doctor's TARDIS, the fourth Doctor scrambled for the door lever, trying desperately to escape the enraged Tegan, who had run out of things to throw. Spying a dusty, ancient , but heavy looking book propping up one side of the hat stand, Tegan leaned over and grabbed it. It was the perfect weapon; she hefted it experimentally in one hand and lobbed it with all her might at the fourth Doctor, who by this time by some miracle had opened the TARDIS doors. He nipped out the door, ducking the flying tome, but the third Doctor, his back to the TARDIS door, did not see it nor was so lucky as to duck. It hit him squarely in the back of the head, and three voices chorused in a painful unison, "OUCH!" For the fifth time that day, the third Doctor slide to the ground, apparently unconscious.  
  
  
  
Sprawled out in the stuffed armchair in the Sergeant Benton's office, the fifth Doctor was chattering busily with Lucy, when he yelped, "Ouch!" Lydia promptly hung up the phone. he sighed and consulted his black book once more. "Oh pooh!" he exclaimed, "Only one left. Julia." He gave this matter serious thought; was he really THAT desperate?  
  
Out in the forest, night began to fall. Mel, Jamie, and the second Doctor were still lost, and Mel had decided that they should rest in a small glade for the night. Jamie protested vehemently he was still hungry and growing more famished by the moment.  
  
"Ah still thinks we should get back to UNIT. Ah'm hungry, and Ah'm not going to beddy-bye without any real food in ma stomach!" Jamie growled.  
  
"No problem," Mel replied cheerfully, "I'll just toast us some toadstools"  
  
"Good night!" Jamie replied and threw himself on the ground, snoring loudly to convince her of his sleep.  
  
Mel smiled knowingly. Men were so predictable. She fixed herself a bed of moss, where she could keep an eye on both of her charges. The Doctor lay a little way off in a patch of poison ivy already fast asleep.  
  
  
  
Along the highway, between the woods and UNIT headquarters, making their slow return to UNIT, were the first Doctor, Nyssa, and K-9. After four hours of unsuccessful hitchhiking, K-9's batteries were once again dead. The first Doctor's died hours ago. Nyssa gave up on urging him along in disgust. They would simply have to sleep out here on the road, then start anew in the morning. She helped the old man to the grass edging the road, then picked up K-9 and moved him. She wished that his batteries weren't so dead. She was afraid of the dark, and she wanted to use his eye screens as a nightlight, like the one she had in the TARDIS. She sighed and settled down in the grass. Soon they were fast asleep.  
  
Back in the woods, still lost and confused as ever, Jo stumbled over a tree root and fell. Luckily only her head impacted on a stone, so nothing important was hurt. She slept.  
  
In the parking lot of UNIT headquarters, the sixth Doctor picked up the book, that had bashed the third Doctor in the head and dusted it off. The title of the volume read TARDIS Manual. "Hmm," the sixth Doctor commented, "First time that was of use to me. Better keep it. I might need it later." He pushed open the door of his TARDIS, which he had neglected to lock, and chunked the book in. A loud thump was heard, followed by a giant crash, a loud bang, and the tinkering sound of shattered glass.  
  
"Oops," the sixth Doctor remarked nonchalantly. "I must remember to have Mel clean that up later," and he banged the door shut.  
  
The fourth Doctor, kneeling on the asphalt, peeled back the third Doctor's eyelids. "He's out," he announced, "probably sleep until morning." Then his empty stomach growled. "I'm hungry! How about a late night snack?"  
Six heads nodded in agreement, and Steven made the Mascot jump up and down in glee. The sixth Doctor moved the orange cones to surround both Turlough and the third Doctor. Having finished this, they moved off to the UNIT cafeteria.  
  
Descending the staircase to the cafeteria, Romana noticed a dark shape huddled on the floor and remembered where she had left her would-be-Romeo. She approached him cautiously and kicked him experimentally. When he didn't respond, she kicked him harder, and when that failed to rouse him, she felt the coast was clear. By now, the cafeteria was closed, but a row of vending machines stood along the wall, promising Twinkies and candy and soda to the lucky person with change. Everyone began filtering their pockets for change, and in desperation, the fourth Doctor and Steven hoisted the Master up by his heels and shook him in a vain search for change, but they had no luck. All this shaking woke the Master, but he was promptly dropped on his head when his pockets failed to produce any silver. he soon became unconscious once again. The fourth Doctor stood depress, chin sunk to his chest, and he stuck his hands in his pockets. he was hungry! His fingers found the sonic screwdriver, and a wonderful idea came into his head. He whipped out the sonic screwdriver and opened all the vending machine, swinging their fronts wide open. "Help yourselves!" he cried, "UNIT's treat!" Then he unlocked the change box and appropriated all the quarters for later use in video games. They could always take it out of his check.  
  
Out in the parking lot, the third Doctor woke earlier than the fourth Doctor anticipated. It was nearly midnight, and the third Doctor was aghast to find himself in the parking lot. He should be in the woods with his fairy friends, dancing by the light of the full moon. He got up and dusted himself down. He noticed a flagon of perfume on the ground and he picked it up. He sprayed himself and his invisible fairy wings with it, then he pranced off carrying his perfume bottle, not smelling the cologne nor noticing the bottle's label, that read "Evening Skunk." He pranced back tot he woods and sprayed the night guards with the perfume. The guards promptly fainted from the stench.  
  
He tripped along the road gaily, skipping happily to the fairy music in his head; it was quite obvious that the Doctor had been hit too many times today. Making his way along the highway, he noticed Nyssa, K-9 and the first Doctor huddled in the grass fast asleep. He smiled angelically and sprayed the sleeping trio beneficently. He tripped off again much pleased with himself. the first Doctor half woke and sniffed the air. "Oh, good grief! What died?" he murmured, then being too exhausted to investigate, he fell back to sleep. 


	5. Chapter 5: the Great Toile Paper Caper

Chapter 5: The Great toilet Paper Caper  
  
Tegan had finally composed herself after watching the terrible tragedy of Rick's death on her favorite soap. She had dried her eyes and re-done her makeup, and now, she felt strong enough to face the Doctors and their dilemma. Operating the door lever, Tegan straightened her shoulders and marched out, preparing finish the business of the fourth Doctor's interruption of her toilettes. But, wait, she suddenly remembered one final piece of business that she had neglected. She disappeared through the inner doors, her high heel shoes echoing down the corridor. A few short moments later, she came running to the console room, an object clenched tightly in her hand and ran out the door. She paused to kick Turlough, when she suddenly noticed that she and the TARDIS were no longer in the parking lot. Now, the fifth Doctor's TARDIS stood in a laboratory surrounded by five other identical blue police box TARDISes. She would have sworn loudly, but she didn't have time at the moment. There were other things to attend to. Heading out of the laboratory door, she began to search for a Doctor she could blame.  
  
Opening doors at random, Tegan hit the jackpot, when she discovered the fifth Doctor, slouched in an armchair, chatting busily to someone called 'Julia'.  
  
"Ah, Julia, I'll just motor over to your place and we can have a good time. We'll play hospital: you can be the patient and I'll be the Doctor."  
  
"Doctor!" cried Tegan in a very shocked and a very loud voice.  
  
"Sounds to me that one of your patients is calling already!" Julia snapped and slammed the phone in his ear.  
  
The Doctor jumped up in anger and yelled, "Tegan!" She had, after all, interrupted him in the midst of a conversation that was getting interesting, and Julia was the last name in his black book to boot. He sighed and picked up a phone book. Turning to the first page, he mused, well, he just have to start from the beginning and keep going until he found a date.  
  
Tegan shrieked, "But, Doctor, we're out of toilet paper!!" and threw the empty cardboard roll, that she had been carrying, at him.  
  
The Doctor immediately dropped the phone book and looked up at Tegan. Now, here was a problem he felt he could tackle.  
  
"Very well, Tegan," replied the Doctor in a commanding tone. "We must do something about that. Follow me."  
  
  
  
The Brigadier had finally crawled out from under his desk. Dimly aware of the dilemma with the Doctor, the Brigadier made his way to the Doctor's laboratory to see if he could get it all sorted out. Hand upon the doorknob, the Brigadier had an uneasy feeling that behind the door was a sight he didn't wish to see. He steeled himself and turned the knob and walked in, eyes tightly closed. He opened his eyes and gasped in pure horror. Six TARDISes, all exactly alike, were lined up against the laboratory wall. The Brigadier screamed horribly, "Oh no, not SIX of them!!" and fainted dead away.  
  
Down in the cafeteria, the Twinkiefest was dying down; everybody was pretty full, as were the sixth Doctor's pockets. They were getting bored, tired, and running out of things to say, and even the fourth Doctor's world famous triple-decker, super-duper, backward, forward, around-the-world, loop-to-loop trick failed to amuse them, even though he tied seventeen knots in his string again, which caused to say several amusing things in alien tongues. Steven suddenly announced, "The Mascot's tired and he wants to go to bed, But, first, he wants someone to tell him a bedtime story . . ."  
  
Several remaining Twinkies winged their way towards Steven and the Mascot, who both ducked. The fourth Doctor yawned and agreed with Steven and the Mascot. "I'm tired, too. There are beds in UNIT's infirmary. We can sleep there."  
  
Everyone nodded assent and got up slowly. They shuffled tiredly up the steps and into the infirmary. Each of them chose a bed and climbed in, most of them not even pausing to take off their coats or shoes. No sooner had they closed their eyes, when Steven's off key voice began:  
  
"Go to sleep, go to sleep.  
  
Close your . . ."  
  
  
  
"Shaddup!!!" five voices yelled. All became silent and they slept.  
  
The fifth Doctor and Tegan were still combing the halls for TP, and in their search, they had found an armful of supplies; now they needed something to carry the toilet paper in. The Doctor hated to go Krogering and was determined to stockpile enough bathroom tissue, filched from UNIT's supplies to last a long time. They came across a door marked "Infirmary" and pushed it opened carefully. The Doctor was surprised to see so many patients in sickbay, and one looked remarkably like a Teddy Bear. He pulled his out for comparison, but Tegan hissed angrily, "Not now!" He turned back to his task guiltily and accidentally dropped his Teddy. Tegan found the laundry cart and hastily emptying it on the floor, she tossed the toilet paper in it, and they trundled it quietly, continuing their search for Charmin.  
  
  
  
By now, the third Doctor reached his fairy glade and was dancing daintily once more in the fairy ring and spraying everything in sight. He was enjoying himself immensely, but he began to wonder where his fairy friends were and so he moved off to find them. He hadn't skipped far, when he came across the sleeping trio of Mel, Jamie, and the second Doctor. He sprayed them generously, and then feeling the need to bestow even more fairy blessing on the sleepers, he picked up a large stick to use as a fairy wand. Gripping the stick with both hands, he waded into the second Doctor's poison ivy patch and whacked him soundly over the head in order to give him proper fairy blessings.  
  
"Ouch!" yelped the second Doctor, suddenly waking from his much needed beauty sleep. He sat up indignantly and looked around for his assailant. By now, the third Doctor moved on to the next sleeper and bashed him soundly with fairy blessings, too.  
  
"Argh!" Jamie screamed and sat up, too. When the third Doctor moved over to Mel, she was already awake and not very happy. Jamie and the second Doctor knew what was coming, but instead of helping Mel, they cringed together in the poison ivy patch. The third Doctor raised his wand to bestow his blessings upon Mel, but she beat him to it, wrenching the stick from his dainty hands and blessing him so soundly that he dropped to the ground, once more unconscious. Seeing the third Doctor stretched out on the forest floor, the second Doctor, Jamie, and Mel promptly went back to sleep.  
  
At the same time in UNIT sickbay, the fourth Doctor woke up and felt the irresistible urge to bonk his sleeping companions with a magic wand. He searched his pockets to findhis fairy wand but to no avail. He did, however, find a trick magician's wand that he figures would do just as well. Tiptoeing across the room, he gently blessed the Mascot, then Steven, and then Vicki. The more persons he blessed, the more enthusiastic he became, and the more good fairy wishes he bestowed. This, of course, entailed tapping each person harder and harder, until his fairy wand tap woke Polly. Sitting up, she discovered it was the fourth Doctor tapping her, and she promptly went back to sleep. The fourth Doctor's blessing on the sixth Doctor was a bit more than a gentle tapping; it was a rather a large bash. The sixth Doctor immediately awoke and reached for the throat of whoever it was who had hit him, but the fourth Doctor tripped lightly away with one more person left to bless. He was going to make this one special. He hovered over Romana, pulled his arm way back, took aim, and fired. At the last moment, Romana rolled over in her sleep, and the Doctor's blow completely missed her. A large bouquet of flowers popped out of the end of the wand. The fourth Doctor looked at the flowers in astonishment. as he sat on Romana's bed. Romana, by this time, had awakened, and she was quite peeved to find the fourth Doctor doing magic tricks in the middle of the night right next to her bed even! For a lack of a better thing to hit him with, Romana threw her pillow at him. Its seams burst on impact and feathers flew everywhere. The fourth Doctor immediately cried, "Ouch!" He was echoed by the sixth Doctor.  
  
"Doctor, you're a baby!" Romana said, "That pillow wasn't that hard," and she leaned over and snatched the sixth Doctor's pillow, and she went back to sleep.  
  
"No, Romana," replied the sixth Doctor to the sleeping woman, "We've been hit again!" And with that he yanked his pillow back from under her head, made as to whack her with it, but then he reconsidered. He needed his pillow.  
  
The fourth Doctor looked around as if he had been awakened from sleepwalking. "Where am I?" he asked, confused as usual. "What am I doing sitting on Romana's bed?"  
  
"If you can't figure it out, we're not going to tell you!" the sixth Doctor chuckled.  
  
"Oh, good grief! I didn't . . ." the fourth Doctor trembled.  
  
"No, you didn't!" Romana replied and pushed him off of her bed. The fourth Doctor fell, hitting his head on the nightstand and went to sleep. The commotion was over. Everyone went back to sleep.  
  
In the men's room, the Doctor was filching all the toilet paper . The next person to use this restroom would get a surprise. He was bending down to remove the last roll from the spindle, when he suddenly cried out, "Ouch!" and dropped the roll into the toilet. Tegan heard the cry and, concerned that he had gotten himself in trouble, ran through the men's room door. The Doctor by now had recovered himself and looked sadly at the bathroom tissue he had drowned.  
  
"Oh well, burial at sea," he replied and flushed the toilet. The toilet immediately clogged and overflowed. Water cascaded across the floor, and the clogged pipes began to make ominous noises. Tegan stepped into the scene of chaos and immediately knew who had caused it.  
  
"Come on, Doctor!" she urged, filling his arms with TP.   
  
"Tegan!" replied the fifth Doctor shocked, "Someone could have been using the facilities!"  
  
"Not anymore they can. Come on," And she pushed him through the door. Loading the Charmin in the cart, they hurried off, hoping no one would notice the mess.  
  
  
  
Out in the forest, day had barely begun when Mel sprung gaily up and woke the rest of her little group. It was all of five A.M., and Mel was convinced that five hours of sleep was all a person needed. The reaction of her companions indicated that they felt otherwise.  
  
Jamie made to lay back down again, but Mel sneakily reminded him that breakfast awaited them back at UNIT cafeteria. He jumped up and lit out for UNIT HQ. Mel and the second and third Doctors set out at a slower pace, but under Mel's drilling, made good time. "Hup, two, three, four, hup . . . " Mel called.  
  
The third Doctor rolled his eyes. "Where did you pick her up at? Boot camp?"  
  
The second Doctor shrugged his shoulders resignedly. He liked his head right where it was. They were within two blocks distance, when the third Doctor caught a glimpse of two bodies, lying in the grass along side the road. There was no reason why they should get to sleep, when he had to go on these forced marches. He stopped to wake them, and Mel immediately yelled at him.  
  
"Did I give you permission to stop, private?" she screamed.  
  
The third Doctor smiled beautifully and pointed to the sleeping pair. Mel promptly kicked them awake in typical sergeant fashion and bawled them in line. Nyssa stammered something about K-9's batteries being dead, but Mel booted the tin dog. His eyes lit up.  
  
"Into line, Fido!" she barked. Bewildered and still half asleep, Nyssa and the first Doctor noticed a peculiar scent. The first Doctor sniffed the air experimentally and tried to identify the smell and where it was coming from but couldn't. He tried to ignore it.  
  
K-9 suddenly piped, "Masters, Mistresses, something stinks!"  
  
Mel wheeled about and yelled, "Shut up, soldier!" She kicked K-9 again. K-9, tired of this treatment, decided that she was an enemy and stunned her. There was a round of spontaneous applause. Then the Doctors turned to head back to UNIT.  
  
"What about Mel?" Nyssa cried, "We can't just leave her here. We must carry her back to UNIT."  
  
"Oh, I most certainly agree, my dear," the second Doctor agreed grinning wickedly, "The sixth Doctor couldn't bear to live without her!" With that he waved the third Doctor to carry her by the arms, and he took her feet.  
  
Walking across the UNIT car park, Nyssa gasped in horror. The fifth and sixth Doctors' TARDISes were gone! She ran over to the spot where the TARDISes once stood, next to the still unconscious Turlough and the little orange cones.  
  
"Oh no," she sobbed, "They have left without me!"  
"Negative, mistress," K-9 informed her, extending his probe. "There is a large trail of blue paint chips leading in this direction." And they set off into the UNIT building. Once inside the door, it was the first Doctor's turn to gasp in horror.  
  
"My TARDIS!" he cried and nearly fainted.  
  
"There is another paint trail, master," K-9 said and glided off to the third Doctor's laboratory.  
  
They entered the laboratory and were dazzled by the sight of six identical TARDISes all standing in a row and an unconscious Brigadier on the floor. The third Doctor's eyes turned green with envy. He only wanted one TARDIS--one that worked, that is. Stepping over the Brigadier's body and dropping Mel's top half, he scrutinized the TARDISes. He chose the oldest and most beaten up looking TARDIS, which was obviously the sixth Doctor's TARDIS. He opened the door to that one with his key, grabbed Mel's arms and helped the second Doctor carry her in. After laying Mel down, the third Doctor began exploring the console, trying to filch a dematerialization circuit. The second Doctor noticed this and tsk-tsked at him and slapped his hands.  
  
"Naughty, naughty," he said, "Leave the sixth Doctor's TARDIS circuits alone. There's enough of us running around the universe without you doing it, too."  
  
The third Doctor looked guilty and penitent. Next time, he'd be sneakier. Besides, there were four more TARDISes to steal a dematerialization circuit from.  
  
The next piece of business was to find Jamie, and knowing Jamie's stomach, the second Doctor knew exactly where he would be. So, they set off for the cafeteria, which pleased the third Doctor greatly; he never did get any tea.  
  
Upon entering the cafeteria, the first, second, and third Doctors and Nyssa were surprised to see not only Jamie, but the fourth Doctor, the sixth Doctor, Romana, Vicki, and Polly. They had purposely left Steven and the Mascot asleep; they had no desire to watch the Mascot eat his breakfast. K-9 was still at the top of the stairs., gliding back and forth desperately.  
  
"Masters! Mistresses!" he called plaintively. The first Doctor puffed back up the steps and kicked the tin dog down them. He really hated that metal thing. K-9 crashed to the floor and his head flew, landing on the still unconscious Master, waking him up.  
  
The Master sat up slowly, rubbing the two large bruises on his head and smelled breakfast. He jumped up and there she was! He sauntered over to his lady love and getting a whiff of "Evening Skunk" being worn by three Doctors, a certain Trakenite, and a man in a skirt, he mistook it for Romana's cologne.  
  
"Good morning, my dear. Oh, how lovely do you smell today, Romana!" the Master simpered.  
  
Nosy as heck, everyone sniffed the air. The first, second, third Doctors along with Nyssa and Jamie couldn't smell anything; everyone, except the Master, turned several shades of green.  
  
"My God! What's that smell!" Polly cried.  
  
"Oh, that's just Jamie. I seem to recall that he always smelt that way," the fourth Doctor replied and ducked Jamie's flying grapefruit.  
  
Vicki leaned over and sniffed the third Doctor's clothes, who stood next to her. She shrieked and promptly fainted.  
  
The sixth Doctor stood up and ordered the stinky Doctors and their smelly companions back to the TARDISes for baths. After all, the stench was quite ruining his breakfast, and when he was hungry, he was mean. After the fragrant Doctors and companions left, everyone resumed eating, leaving Vicki unconscious on the floor. The Master took Vicki's unfinished breakfast and sat down: "Waste not, want not" was his opinion.  
  
Out in the forest, Jo was still unconscious.  
  
In the fifth Doctor's TARDIS, the fifth Doctor and Tegan finally put away the last roll of toilet paper in the storage closet.  
  
"Well," said the fifth Doctor, looking approvingly at the stuffed closet, "I guess that wiped out that problem!"  
Tegan promptly kicked him. He deserved it for that truly tasteless pun. She yawned, then announced she was going to bed. She'd had a long night; searching for toilet paper and keeping the Doctor out of trouble was hard work.  
  
"Goodnight, Doctor. Please, try to stay out of trouble!"  
  
"Don't worry, Tegan," he replied, "I'm just going to get up a game of cricket with the UNIT soldiers."  
  
Tegan was too far down the hallway to hear him; otherwise she would have gotten upset. Any dangerous object, such as knives, scissors, small household appliances, TARDIS circuitry, and most of all, cricket bats, in the Doctor's hands could cause serious problems.  
  
Popping out of his TARDIS, washed, dried, powdered, perfumed, the third Doctor looked furtively around, then taking out his key, unlocked the door of the fourth Doctor's TARDIS. He slipped inside, meaning to steal the dematerialization circuit, or at least, replace it with is own broken one. He popped a hatch under the console and stuck his fingers in.  
  
"Yaagh!" he yelped and pulled his hand out. Melted jelly babies and used bubblegum clung to his fingers. He shook his hand in an attempt to remove the goop and decided that he didn't want to dig out the dematerialization circuit of this TARDIS. Earth wasn't this bad of a place. Besides, there were three more TARDISes left for him to vandalize. He slipped back out and turned to re-lock the door, so as to leave the fourth Doctor's TARDIS as he found it, apparently unmolested. He took another step backwards, right into the path of the fifth Doctor's cricket bat, which he was swinging with wild abandon, as he imagined himself hitting the winning run. A loud crack was heard, followed by two agonizing screams. It finally dawned on the very dim fifth Doctor, that every time the third Doctor had been hit, he, as a later incarnation, got the privilege of feeling the pain. he rubbed his temples gingerly. Now, he had a massive headache. Deciding that it would be best to hide the cracked bat and leave the once again unconscious third Doctor on the lab floor, the fifth Doctor chunked the bat into his TARDIS, whistled nonchalantly, shoved his hands in his pockets, then announced to no one in particular, "I think I'll be going down to breakfast now!" He hurriedly left.  
  
The first Doctor, the second Doctor, Jamie, and Nyssa, now de-scented and clean, were going through the cafeteria line, Jamie for the second time that morning. He'd taken his breakfast tray to the TARDIS and left it there; who could tell when that might come in useful. They joined the other Doctors and companions at a long table. Most of the companions were finished with breakfast, but the fourth and especially the sixth Doctors were still going strong. The fourth Doctor looked up and said through a mouthful of eggs and bacon, "Where's the third Doctor?"  
  
"Oh, Doctor, do have some manners! People are trying to eat!" Romana cried out, clearly grossed out.  
  
The sixth Doctor looked up; something finally interested him more than his food. "Speaking of Doctors, anyone seen the wimp lately?"  
"The third Doctor's still in his TARDIS, no doubt, polishing his nails," the second Doctor smarted, and then he added as an afterthought, "And don't call me a wimp!"  
"Shut up, stupid," the sixth Doctor replied flinging a forkful of scrambled eggs at him.  
  
The second Doctor retaliated by, not throwing his breakfast-- he hadn't eaten since tea yesterday, but by throwing the granola bar that Mel gave him. He aimed for the sixth Doctor's head, but he missed completely and hit Polly, knocking her out. She landed face down in the remains of her breakfast. Several more minutes of involved food fighting commenced, during which time food was plastered to the tables, the floors, the chairs, the neighbors, etc. The Doctors were the most involved participants in the fight; it was certainly the most fun the first Doctor had had for a long time that didn't wear him out. Jamie was busily eating his breakfast, pausing only briefly to lick the occasional splat of oatmeal from his face. Romana had problems of her own. The Master was getting too frisky for his own good, and so, in the ensuing melee, she calmly picked up her loaded food tray and bashed him soundly. He slumped to the floor unconscious. Nyssa was shocked by all the violence and stood up and tried to stop all this nonsense, for which action she was promptly hit with a drinking glass and knocked out. The food fight looked to last much longer, but the two most enthusiastic participants stopped throwing food and yelped, "Ouch!" The food fight ended abruptly.  
  
"Somebody hit the third Doctor again," the fourth Doctor said rubbing his newest bruise.  
  
"And if it wasn't me, and it wasn't you, or him," the sixth Doctor pointed to the first Doctor, "Or him," indicating the second Doctor, "Then it must have been the wimp!" he concluded with relish rubbing his hands together gleefully. He'd been looking for a reason to punch the fifth Doctor, now it seemed he had one. 


	6. Chapter 6: The Final Whack

Chapter 6: The Final Whack  
  
The fifth Doctor walked hurriedly down the hall, very concerned about the possibility of someone finding out about the little mishap that he and the third Doctor had had. He took his hands from his trouser pockets and began to pat down his jacket pockets for his teddy bear for reassurance, but, to his horror, he found the Teddy was no longer there! He gasped, "Oh no!" hoping furiously that Teddy hadn't accidentally fallen into one of UNIT's toilets during his night's escapades. The fifth Doctor faintly remembered taking out his teddy bear in the infirmary. Perhaps, if he hurried, Teddy might still be there.  
  
He rushed into UNIT sickbay, intent on recovering his teddy before any dread disaster could befall him, and suddenly found himself before a grown man clutching a stuffed panda bear and engaged in deep conversation with his dear Teddy!  
  
"Teddy!" the fifth Doctor exclaimed with glee, grabbing the bear and embracing it fondly. "You're safe!" Then holding Teddy at arm's length, the Doctor assumed the motherly pose and waggled his finger at him, "Now, don't you ever do that again. You gave me such a fright!"  
  
Steven smiled at the fifth Doctor. Now, here was a man he could admire. "Good morning, sir. The Mascot and I have been looking after Mr. Ted E. Bear for you this morning, and we are glad to make your acquaintance." He proffered his hand, and Steven and the fifth Doctor shook. Then Steven made the Mascot introduce himself to the Doctor. They proceeded to have a lively and animated conversation between the four of them.  
  
  
  
Having finished their breakfast and their food fight, the four other Doctors decided to go looking for their third and fifth selves; some people talk about finding themselves, but this was getting ridiculous. The companions tagged along, as there weren't many of them left - - conscious, that is. Two to be exact: Romana and Jamie, and the way Jamie was acting towards Romana, icy Time Lady that she was, forebode that there would soon be only one companion left. Halfway up the stairs, the amorous Scot put his hands on an objectable part of Romana's anatomy, for which action, she kicked him squarely in a vulnerable spot. Jamie rolled down the steps in agony and joined K-9, the Master, Vicki, Nyssa, and Polly unconscious on the cafeteria floor. It was then that Romana discovered the answer to that age old question. What do Scotsmen wear under their kilts - - boxer shorts. In Jamie's case, they were covered in little red hearts and cupids.  
  
The Doctors and Romana continued to the Doctor's laboratory, and upon reaching it, found the third Doctor lying on the floor with a new exceptionally large bruise on his head. The Brigadier was just regaining consciousness. He shook his head groggily, and his eyes focused on the sixth Doctor's cat lapel pin. A sudden wave of grief washed over him, and he moaned, "Oh Fluffy!"  
  
"I beg your pardon!" the sixth Doctor exclaimed quite confused.  
  
"I didn't realize that it would upset him so much!" the second Doctor cried out distressed.  
  
"What is going on?" the sixth Doctor demanded.  
  
"Well," answered the fourth Doctor, "it concerns a cat, a TARDIS, and a very large envelope!"  
  
Since the fifth Doctor was obviously not in the laboratory, the four Doctors decided to split up and comb UNIT for him, leaving the Brigadier as a watchdog over both the third Doctor and the fifth Doctor's TARDIS just in case he was hiding in there. They exited the lab and went in five different directions. The fourth Doctor was pleased with this plan of action. It gave him a chance to return to the infirmary to recover his Duncan Butterfly yo-yo, which he had inadvertently fallen out of his pocket last night. He'd spent the good part of the evening untying all those knots.  
  
Entering the sickbay, the Doctor found an even bigger prize than his yo-yo; the fifth Doctor, who along with Steven, the Mascot and Teddy were watching cartoons. But first things first, the fourth Doctor collected his yo-yo, then he gagged and tied the fifth Doctor up with his scarf. Steven, in his infinite dimness, looked up and asked in an innocent voice:  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
"Nevermind, Steven," the fourth Doctor replied. "The fifth Doctor and I are playing a little game in the lab. You just stay here and watch Teddy and "The Smurfs" We'll come back for you in a little while."  
  
The fourth Doctor marched the fifth Doctor back to the lab and left him in the Brigadier's care, who out of fear of the other Doctors and owing to the mental problems he was experiencing, left him tied. The fourth Doctor breezed down to the communication desk, "borrowed" the PA mike, and loudly announced to all of UNIT: "Now hear this. All persons wishing to inflict pain upon the fifth Doctor, please, assemble in a single file line outside of the third Doctor's laboratory. Remember though, I caught him, I tied him, and I gagged him. I get first whack!"  
  
Within two minutes, all four Doctors had assembled outside the lab along with their lone companion Romana. The fourth Doctor leaned over and nudged the sixth Doctor, who gave him an affronted look.  
  
"Talk about me and my toys! You should have seen what the wimp and Steven were playing with when I found them: teddy bears!" the fourth Doctor chortled.  
  
"You think that excuses your tin dog?" the sixth Doctor retorted.  
  
"Speaking of toys, what about that toy that you laughingly refer to as a companion?" the fourth Doctor smarted back.  
  
"Not now, you twits! I want to beat up the wimp!" said the first Doctor.  
  
All three Doctors looked at the first Doctor strangely. Somehow they never expected that kind of comment out of their first self.  
  
Suddenly, a loud commotion was heard in the laboratory, followed by the shattering of glass. There was a loud shout and an incoherent babble, then deadly silence. Since he was first in line, the fourth Doctor rushed in. The Brigadier lay on the floor unconscious again. Beakers and vials and scientific equipment, fallen from overturned tables, were strewn on the floor, and the single laboratory window was broken, as if someone had used it as an emergency exit. In the corner, still tied and gagged, looking confused and trying to look innocent, was the fifth Doctor. Most distressing of all was the disappearance of the third Doctor.  
  
"Oh good grief!" the first Doctor moaned, "We've got to go back to the forest AGAIN!!"  
  
The second Doctor walked over to the fifth Doctor and peered intently into his face. "what happened here?" he asked.  
  
The fifth Doctor mumbled incoherently.  
  
"It may help if you ungag him first," suggested the sixth Doctor sardonically.  
  
The fourth Doctor released the fifth Doctor from his knitted bonds. "Now, explain!" he demanded.  
  
"Well," began the fifth Doctor.  
  
"Hurry, man, we haven't got all day!" cried the sixth Doctor, "It's nearly time for lunch!"  
  
"No!" cried all the Doctors including Romana all together.  
  
"You see," the fifth Doctor continued, "the third Doctor woke up and thought he was Tinkerbell. he grabbed a bottle of some powder, hugged the Brigadier, then flounced out the window. The Brigadier said he had seen the label on the jar and that the powder was one of the most horrible, terrible, volatile chemicals on Earth, capable of being ignited by the smallest jarring. he could have been killed by the third Doctor's hug. So, he fainted from fear. And now, the fairy is tripping around dusting people with explosives!"  
  
"As it does not concern me in the least, I vote that we let him go to the woods and blow himself up!" the second Doctor suggested brightly and set off to climb into his TARDIS and leave. The later Doctors restrained him and themselves. They were by now very angry with the circumstances and were determined to beat ANYTHING up!  
  
"I second the motion," announced the first Doctor, "I certainly don't want to walk back to the woods again!"  
  
"And I third the motion," Romana added, "Anything to get rid of this one!" She pointed to the fourth Doctor. he surreptitiously ignored her.  
  
"It's agreed then. We'll go back to the forest, find the third Doctor, return him to normalcy and to UNIT, then get the hell out of here before something else goes wrong!" the fourth Doctor said imperiously daring anyone to contradict him. He was, after all, the tallest Doctor.   
"Right, everyone?" the sixth Doctor added menacingly, because he was the biggest and the meanest Doctor, and what he said usually went.  
  
Deciding to avoid a bloody fight, the first Doctor, the second Doctor, and Romana gave in. Mostly because in a fight, they would probably lose. Trooping out to the UNIT car park, they chose to take a jeep to the forest: otherwise it would take three weeks at the first Doctor's snail pace. Squeezing into the jeep, Romana demonstrated her driving skills. After fifteen minutes of intensely scrutinizing the dashboard, she managed to find the ignition. Once she turned the engine over, things got worse. Suffice to say, when Romana finally got onto the highway, UNIT had a new gate. Driving was not one of the subjects taught at the Prydonian Academy.  
  
Back to the forest, Jo finally woke up. She put a hand to the tender spot on her head, and clapped her hands over her ears in pain. A horrible moaning and groaning pierced her skull even through her hands. What kind of hideous monster, crashing about the forest, could this be making such a din? In truth, it was the third Doctor singing.  
  
By now, Romana had driven out to the forest. She turned out to be as reckless and speed loving as the third Doctor himself. The five Doctors and Romana had split up to look for the third Doctor and now were crashing and scrambling around in the forest ot get this silly story over with . . . all except the first Doctor, of course. He sat on a rock, exhausted as usual, and whistled for the third Doctor as one would a dog.  
  
He whistled loudly. "Here, boy! Here, boy!" he called.  
  
The second Doctor thought this rather rude. "Say now, that's not very sporting. What story do you think we're in? 'Lassie, Come Home'?"  
In the middle of the forest, Jo was confused and afraid. Crashing and stomping and all sort of noises hemmed her from all sides; the moaning and yelling came closer. Jo did what came naturally to her, she panicked. Looking for a suitable weapon, her eyes lit upon her purple high heeled shoes. She took one off and took careful aim and let it fly at the groaning noise. The noise immediately stopped as the shoe impacted on its target. A muffled thump was heard. Jo did the second thing that came naturally to her; she screamed. She screamed partly due to the fear of hurting the creature she had hit, but her screams were mostly due to the flying jar coming towards her. It smashed on her head and covered her with a white powder. She fell dazed.  
  
A chorus of ouches arose from the forest, then three Doctors were surrounding the semi-conscious third Doctor. the first and the second Doctors straggled in last, and finally noticing the dazed Jo, the first Doctor gasped in horror and pointed to the well dusted Jo. The other Doctors turned to her.  
  
"Oh my giddy aunt! The girl's been covered in that explosive powder!" the second Doctor exclaimed for the benefit for those who could not grasp the obvious.  
  
"Huh?" said Jo, who was one of those.  
  
"Don't move!" cried the first Doctor in agitation. "The slightest movement may cause the powder to explode, and you with it! "  
  
"Do what?" replied Jo, still not grasping the obvious.  
  
"He means that the slightest movement may cause this explosive powder to ignite with the elements in the air causing a chain reaction, which will, in contact with your skin, cause you to be rented into a thousand tiny gory bits, flinging blood and bone for up to twenty yards and encrusting little bits of you into the barks of nearby trees," the sixth Doctor answered, "So, I shouldn't move if I were you."  
  
"Oh," said Jo slowly, finally getting the idea, "I think I'll just sit here quietly and not move at all."  
  
"Good girl," the fourth Doctor encouraged, "We'll find a way to save you!" His face glowed; here was another quest for him to undertake. Romana rolled her eyes; not again, she thought. The least he could do was stick to one quest at a time.  
  
During all of this, the third Doctor finally woke up. He crawled blearily over to the group huddled around, yet not near Jo, wondered what was going on. he got up slowly, lurched through the frozen circle of Doctors, and he put out a hand to brush off the confused Jo. The other Doctors and Romana gasped in terror and retreated a step. he brushed a little more powder from her, coaxed her into standing up, and the rest of the company looked to flee. He turned to the company, who were cringing in anticipation of the explosion to follow.  
  
"Why on Earth are you all standing there? Why don't you help the poor girl for Pete's sake?!" the third Doctor demanded, having found a cause to stand up for.   
  
No one answered; they were trying to silently steal away into the forest before the gore started flying.  
  
"Stop!" yelled the third Doctor, "I seemed to have been unconscious for a little while, and I don't quite understand what is going on here. The last thing I remember was a crack on the head, delivered by a certain one of my incarnations by a certain cricket bat, and which crack I intend to repay as soon as we return to UNIT."  
  
"Ah, if you don't move away from that young lady, there will not be a fifth Doctor to whack you nor you to whack him. Indeed, there will be no Doctors at all!" the first Doctor explained patiently.  
  
"I don't quite follow you, old fellow," the third Doctor replied, "Would you please explain what is going on!"  
  
"I'm going to die," Jo quietly answered.  
  
The third Doctor turned to Jo and said gently, "Well, of course, my dear, we shall all die someday, but I hardly think that . . ."  
  
"No, Doctor," Jo replied in that same unnaturally calm voice, "Here. Now."  
  
"Well, at least you will go out with a bang!" the fourth Doctor added in an attempt to cheer Jo.  
  
"What?!" the third Doctor cried, "Tell me what happened!"  
  
"From the beginning?" the second Doctor yelped, "By then, we'll all be fertilizer!"  
The fifth Doctor stepped forward nervously. Perhaps if he helped now, he could humor the third Doctor into not pulverizing him later, if there was a later.  
  
"well, you see," he began timorously, "on your way out of the laboratory back to the forest . . ."  
  
"On my way?" the third Doctor demanded, "What was I doing coming out here to the forest? How did I get here anyway?"  
  
"You were playing Tinkerbell," the second Doctor interjected, "Though I admit, it was hard to tell the difference between Tinkerbell and your normal self."  
  
If he had not been restrained by far more urgent matters, the third Doctor would have throttled his second self regardless of the consequences to himself. He put it on his mental list to deal with his second self as soon as he was finished with his fifth.  
  
"As I was saying," began the fifth Doctor again, "on your way out, you grabbed a jar of deadly highly volatile explosive from the laboratory work bench and trip out to the woods. Then when Jo hit you with her shoe, the jar went flying, shattering, and dumping the chemical all over her. So, she is now a walking bomb," the fifth Doctor paused for a breath, and shoved his hands into his pockets. "And now you must excuse me, but I really must be going."  
  
Five heads nodded in agreement, and six people edged nervously away from Jo and the third Doctor.  
  
"Wait a minute!" bellowed the third Doctor belligerently, then he wished he hadn't yelled so loud; he had a horrific headache. "Where's the label from the jar?" He had an idea that things were not as bad as they seemed, especially since he didn't remember having any deadly highly volatile chemical in his laboratory.  
  
Romana leaned over and gingerly picked up a shard of glass with the label clinging to it with the tips of her fingers. "Here," she proffered, but her arm wasn't long enough. Fearful of either Jo or the third Doctor moving or even breathing, the fourth Doctor shoved Romana forward to the third Doctor. Terrified of her proximately of the deadly chemical, Romana handed the label to the third Doctor with trembling fingers.  
  
"Thank you," he replied, ignoring her white face and chattering teeth. "Hideously, Horribly, Terribly Explosive: DO NOT TOUCH!!!!!!" he read aloud. the company gasped. The third Doctor returned to brushing Jo off. This time he did so with much more vigorously. Then taking a bit of the white powder on his fingers, he tasted it. Five Doctors fainted.  
  
"Wimps!" the third Doctor sneered, "Afraid of a little Cremora! It is the only way to keep the UNIT soldiers out of it, you know."  
  
Romana restrained herself from beating him. he'd probably become Tinkerbell again, and goodness knows, she didn't want to go through this whole crazy story again. Instead, she entertained herself by slapping the fainted Doctors, some more so than necessary to wake them.  
  
Trooping back to the jeep parked at the edge of the woods, Jo explained how the third Doctor had come to think of himself as Tinkerbell in the first place. " . . . and you see, I tripped over the cables and such, and the teapot went flying! . . ."  
  
The whole confession of her part in the Doctor's dilemma was not smart of her, because everyone was tired of this mess and were quite willing to persecute anyone having a hand in starting it, and as the jeep wouldn't hold eight people . . .  
  
The fifth Doctor and Jo plodded wearily down the highway, only ten more miles to go before they reached UNIT. A car whizzed by, and the fifth Doctor hooked his thumb hopefully, but the car drove pass. They continued walking. The decision had been made that since the jeep would only hold six people, and since everyone else had walked to the forest and/or back many more times that the fifth Doctor or Jo, those two deserved the honors of hoofing it back to UNIT this time. Besides that, Jo had gotten them into this mess in the first place, and the fifth Doctor hadn't done a lick of work since he'd arrived at UNIT. 


	7. Chapter 7: A Present for the BrigadierTi...

Chapter 7: A Present for the Brigadier--Times Six  
  
By now, the first, second, third, fourth, and Sixth Doctors, along with Romana had arrived at UNIT, having walked the last two blocks. The third Doctor had insisted that he drive, but owing to the eight large bruises on his head, he had plowed the jeep into a telephone pole, cutting off all communication between UNIT and the outside world.  
  
Once inside the Doctor's laboratory, the third Doctor suddenly remarked, "I'm hungry! Come to think of it, I haven't had my tea yet. Well, old chaps, must you all run off so soon? It's been interesting to be sure, but I'm certain you all are quite busy. Thank you so much for your help."  
  
"Actually, I haven't really got to run off right away' I think I might join you for that spot of tea, 'old chap', if you don't mid, of course," the sixth Doctor said not making it a request.  
  
"What a splendid idea, young man! I think I may join you two, eh?" the first Doctor chimed in.  
  
"I could use a cup," the fourth Doctor added, "Romana here can't even boil waster muchless make tea."  
  
Romana shot him an evil look. "Suppose you do the cooking and I do the driving, Tinkerbell. Maybe we would get where we are going!"  
  
"A tea party!" the second Doctor exclaimed, "Oh how I do love tea parties. I've not been one ever since that party with Alice . . ."  
  
"Wrong story!" chimed everyone.  
  
"Well, it's decided then. A farewell tea party this afternoon, in, oh say, two hours. I'll go inform the cook. Oh, and I'll wake our companions up at the same time. I imagine UNIT is quite littered with them by now," the sixth Doctor enthused. He turned to leave then noticed the Brigadier on the floor. Happy to have a chance to begin his self appointed task so soon, the sixth Doctor took a flask of cold water from the work bench and poured the contents on the Brigadier's head. The Brigadier came about abruptly, sat up and moaned once again, "Oh Fluffy!" The sixth Doctor helped him up.  
  
"I'll see that he's looked after," remarked the sixth Doctor, then helping him out of the lab, they disappeared down the corridor.  
  
"What in Hades went on while I was . . . uh . . . otherwise occupied? Who did what tot he Brigadier's cat?" demanded the third Doctor.  
  
The second Doctor's face turned bright red, and he slunked behind the fourth Doctor for protection. The third Doctor was, however, too fast for him. he caught him by the collar and glared at him. "Well, you see," the second Doctor faltered, "There was a slight miscalculation in the coordinates . . ."  
  
"You squashed the Brigadier's cat!!" the third Doctor yelped.  
  
"No, no no, it was more like Fluffy got between the TARDIS and the floor . . . !"  
  
The fourth Doctor was tired of this, and he announced it. "You two can yell a while longer if you like, I'm going to take a bath and freshen up. Romana, where's my sailboat? You had it last."  
  
Romana griped the fourth Doctor's scarf and pulled it tight. Yanking him along like a recalcitrant puppy, she pulled him into the TARDIS, slamming the door behind them.  
  
"What a good idea. I think I'll take a bath too," the third Doctor mused aloud and entered the TARDIS. The door shut behind him.  
  
"You need one!" the second Doctor smarted at the closed door, then he turned to enter the TARDIS.  
  
Passing by the front desk of UNIT, the sixth Doctor found Sergeant Benton. "Hello, Benton," he greeted him cheerfully, "Look after the Brigadier, will you? I'm busy at the moment, but I think the Brigadier could use a nice bath and a rest . . ."  
  
"And a long holiday," moaned the beleaguered Brigadier.  
  
The sixth Doctor patted him sympathetically on the back. "Things will look better after a nice relaxing bath, Brigadier. Trust me."  
  
He bounded off down the corridor again and ran, quite literally, into the fifht Doctor and Jo, who had finally made it back from the forest. "Ah, you've finally returned," he enthused.  
  
"No thanks to you," replied the fifth Doctor morosely.  
  
"Good for the old tickers, you know. Well, the news is we're going to have a tea party about fourish, so you both have time to clean yourselves up," the sixth Doctor advised, wrinkling his nose at the slightly ripe odors wafting from the sweaty bodies of the fifth Doctor and Jo.  
  
Well, that certainly was a warm welcome. The fifth Doctor trooped off to his TARDIS in the lab, and Jo trooped off to the UNIT showers. The sixth Doctor trooped off to the cafeteria. Upon arrival, the sixth Doctor was charmed to find so many companions to wake up. He broke into song and dance.  
  
"Singin' in the rain," shuffle, dance, kick Vicki, "Just singin' in the rain," spin, kick Nyssa, slide, "What a glorious feeling," kick Polly, shuffle, twirl, "I'm happy again," slide, back boot Jamie, spin, shuffle, really kick the Master hard. Oh well, he'd run out of companions and even enemies to kick. He stopped singing abruptly, ceased dancing, shoved his hands into his pockets, and proceeded to the kitchen.  
  
There was one thing to be said for the sixth Doctor's unorthodox method of waking companions, it certainly did work. All companions were now awake, thought they be hard pressed to decide whether it was the sixth Doctor's kicking or hideous singing that had actually awaken them. Rising, they discovered that they were covered with morning's breakfast and several footprints, and promptly decided that baths were in order. They all set off to the third Doctor's lab and their respective Doctor's TARDISes, all except the Master, that is, and he really did mind the food on him. In fact, he thought it was rather nifty. Some of it might have been thrown by Romana! And on that thought, he set off after the companions. Perhaps they could lead him to his beloved.  
  
  
  
The second Doctor popped his head out of the TARDIS gingerly. Good, no one was there. He closed the door behind him and pulled out a folded newspaper from his pocket, his newspaper; he snitched it from someone's desk, but between him and five other Doctors, most of UNIT was in their pockets anyway. the ad he was interested in read: "Kittens: Free to good homes," and rechecking the address, he set off.  
  
Walking up the flagstone steps, the second Doctor checked the address once more, then he rang the doorbell. An ordinary man surrounded by several balls of fluff opened the door.  
  
"Hello, I've read your ad, and I'd like to have a kitten, if you please," the second Doctor said.  
  
"Take your pick," the man said dourly, motioning to the capricious kitten, shredding his trouser legs. He looked hard at the shabbily dressed man before him. Almost as silly as the last bugger, he thought, he thought. Oh well, as long as it got rid of the kittens!  
  
The second Doctor selected a grey kitten with white feet and hooked it gently onto his shoulder while he shook the man's hand and thanked him profusely.  
  
"Oh, it'll have a good home. You can't imagine how thrilled the Brigadier will be to have a new cat! Thank you again. Ta-ta!"  
The second Doctor turned and walked back down the street towards UNIT, and the kitten entertained itself by crawling around inside the Doctor's coat, tickling him.  
  
"Oooh, stop that!" the second Doctor giggled. "Ooh! That tickles!" He fished vainly around in his jacket trying to catch the elusive kitten. They continued down the road in this manner; the cat tickling and the Doctor laughing aloud and chasing the kitten with his spare hand.  
  
Ten minutes later, after the second Doctor was long gone, another figure knocked on the cat man's door. The man opened the door to find a man in Edwardian cricketing gear cringing before him.  
  
"Hullo. I came in answer to your ad . . ."  
  
The man motioned yet again to the kittens amidst his feet. "Be my guest!"  
  
The fifth Doctor chose a kitten as yellow as himself, yellow-orange tabby that had a distinct liking for his shoe laces. He scooped the kitten up, thanked the man with a gallant doff of his hat, then he sat the kitten on his head, covering it with his hat. The kitten stood up lifting his hat. It was a curious sight indeed to see: a white clad young man, wearing a hat that seemed to float several inches above his head, under which appeared four orange feet and a striped orange tail that wagged to and fro, walking down the street. As he turned the corner, the bus pulled up to the house, and an all too familiar figure hobbled off.  
  
The first Doctor would have shown up earlier, but it had taken him a long time to win bus fare from the UNIT soldiers in penny-poker. Tapping up to the door, he rapped on it with care. The man opened the door again and wondered if this would ever end. Another weirdo wanting another cat. The first Doctor picked a kitten at random, a white gentle looking type--the only one he could handle. He put it in a box prepared with holes, thanked the man, and left in time to catch the next bus back to UNIT.  
  
  
  
Back in the third Doctor's lab at UNIT, the third Doctor fished out his TARDIS key, unlocked the first Doctor's TARDIS and sneaked in. Once inside, he looked around bewildered. He certainly had been senile in those days. Deciding he didn't want to deal with the first Doctor's dematerialization circuit, as most of the time the TARDIS didn't work too well back then (not to say that it worked any better these days), he slipped back out. Well, there were two more TARDISes to vandalize.  
  
Next on the list was the fifth Doctor's TARDIS. He had heard that the fifth Doctor had been doing a little maintenance lately., so this was probably the best prospect. Hung on the TARDIS door, the third Doctor saw an orange and black notice. It read: "Beware of the Tegan!" Ha, ha, he thought, some warning. He didn't know Tegan very well, now did he. Entering the TARDIS, he set to work cheerfully, whistling loudly and tunelessly. He had the dematerialization circuit half out, when the inner doors opened.  
  
"Doctor?" Tegan called half asleep, "Doctor? Is that you making that awful racket?"  
  
The third Doctor looked up guiltily; he was caught. But as he caught a sight of Tegan's beauty mud covered face, he screamed in terror and fled out the door slamming it behind him. That was close.  
  
Once outside and taking a deep breath, he collected himself for that other task. Checking the time on Mike Yates' new digital watch, which he had appropriated and now wore, the third Doctor saw that if he wanted to get the Brigadier that little present, he have to hurry. he could always steal the second Doctor's dematerialization circuit later. Grabbing his cloak, the third Doctor headed for the car park and Bessie.  
  
In the fourth Doctor's TARDIS, the fourth Doctor was busily trying to rebuild K-9, while a small calico kitten was busily shredding the Doctor's scarf. The fourth Doctor scrambled around the console room on all fours, the kitten followed the dragging scarf. Making the last adjustment, K-9's eyescreens lit up, and he began to growl.  
  
"Good dog, K-9! Good dog!" the Doctor said backing away. He thought that K-9's growling was due to an error he had made in the rewiring of his circuits and he had no desire to be stunned again.  
  
"Master, there is a hostile alien being in this room!" K-9 barked.  
  
"What?" the fourth Doctor cried as Romana came into the console room. "It's just Romana!"  
  
"The cat!!!" K-9 bristled.  
  
"That harmless little thing? Now really, K-9 . . ." Romana remonstrated.  
  
The fourth Doctor began to laugh at K-9. "Doctor," Romana interrupted, "Couldn't we just give K-9 to the Brigadier and keep the kitten?"  
  
K-9's eyescreens lit up with indignation.  
  
Really, Romana, the cat is for the poor distraught Brigadier," the fourth Doctor reasoned. "Now, put it in the box. We can't possibly keep the kitten We don't have a litter box."  
  
Romana made a face and fastened the box shut with a few rubber bands. Not the best wrap job in the world, she thought, but it would do.  
  
Back in the kitchen, the sixth Doctor was busily putting his tea-party order.  
  
"Yes, I think we shall require, oh, about 50 gallons of tea, approximately six dozen tea sandwiches, ten or twelve pounds of tea cookies, 7 jars of Cremora, lots of sugar and milk, a box of Fruit Loops, oh, and don't forget a dozen pounds of chocolate walnut fudge; that's for me. Oh, yes, and Sergeant Benton will be paying for all of this." The sixth Doctor smiled. He liked giving people little surprises like that. It made life more interesting. Glancing up at the clock, the sixth Doctor thought he really must hurry up if he was going to pick up the Brigadier's gift before tea-time.  
  
Passing Nyssa and Vicki in the hallway, the sixth Doctor recruited them to set the table because they were naturally too gullible to decline.  
  
"How many places should we set, Doctor?" Nyssa inquired.  
  
The sixth Doctor threw his hands up; it surpassed the mathematical ability of everyone present to figure out how many Doctors, companions, and hanger-ons there were now.  
  
In the second Doctor's TARDIS, the second Doctor was busily trying to package the kitten. he'd finally caught it, but lacked a box to put it in. Handing the cat to Jamie, who was none too fond of the wee fuzzy thing, he rooted through the cupboard, found an old hat box, emptied the contents on the floor, punched holes in it, and promptly put the kitten inside.  
  
"There," said the second Doctor with satisfaction, "Doesn't that look nice, Jamie?"  
  
"Aye," Jamie said doubtfully, sucking his bitten fingers, "As long as I don't have to hold the wee beastie!"  
Just then Ben came through the inner door. "Look, Doc, I washed my hands, can I have tea now?" Ben inquired eagerly. He was hungry. The second Doctor believed in one meal a day, and if you missed it, you starved. And by now, Ben had missed quite a few meals.  
  
"Carry this, Ben, will you?" the second Doctor said, shoving the box into Ben's hands. "Be careful with it!" he yelped, as Ben began tossing it around. Indignant meows came through the air holes.  
  
"What's in it, Doc?" Ben asked curious.  
  
"A kitten. Fluffy II. For the Brigadier," the second Doctor replied as they walked down the corridor to the cafeteria.  
  
"Huh?" replied Ben.  
  
"Don't ask. It's a long story!" snapped Polly.  
  
The sixth Doctor knocked smartly on the cat man's door, then he sucked his bruised knuckles ruefully. He still had his hand in his mouth when the door opened. Quickly hiding his hand behind his back, the sixth Doctor smiled at the man and began. "Hello, I wonder . . ."  
  
Oh no, thought the cat man, I've lost it now. Six weirdoes in one day. He really must stop advertising in those cheap newspapers.  
  
The sixth Doctor explained he'd come for a kitten; the cat man gave him his choice. the Doctor chose a grey and white tabby, resembling his cat lapel pin. He seriously considered taking two kittens: one for the Brigadier and one for himself, but thinking about how Mel would take it, he decided against it. Putting the kitten in his jacket pocket, he thanked the cat man profusely and turned back towards UNIT. 


	8. Chapter 8: Fond Farewells and Hasty Retr...

Chapter 8: Fond Farewells and Hasty Retreats  
  
In UNIT cafeteria, the tea party was about to commence. Nyssa and Vicki's calculations of the number of guests had come out somewhat wrong. The table was set for about fifty. Too bad Adric wasn't there. Unlike Vicki and Nyssa, he could count to ten, twenty if he took his shoes off. By now, most of the companions and Doctors had arrived, all except Turlough, Mel, and the sixth Doctor. Turlough was still unconscious in the parking lot, and only the first, second, and third Doctors knew where Mel was, and they weren't telling. At the head of the table sat five mewing packages. Vicki tried to hush them as the Brigadier came into the cafeteria. Still shaken by his recent tragedy, the Brigadier was greeted warmly by all the Doctors and led to the seat at the head of the table. He looked at the packages. "For me?" he asked suddenly touched. "Oh, you shouldn't have!"  
  
Just then, the sixth Doctor bounded in. "So sorry to be late," he panted, "I'm usually not late for a meal, you know. Brigadier, I'm glad to see you've recovered enough to join us. I've brought you a little present."  
  
With that, he delved into his pocket and brought out his kitten, now festooned with a blue and white polka dot bow around its neck.  
  
"Oh, how cute!" the Brigadier gushed, "A new kitten! I thin I'll call him Fluffy II. Hello there, Sergeant Fluffy," he said saluting the cat.  
  
Sergeant Benton, who was standing beside the Brigadier was not amused. This cat had been promoted over him!  
  
"Shall I open the other presents then?" the Brigadier asked rhetorically, then he began by taking the first package, a frilly ribboned box. Opening the box, a black Persian kitten popped out. The third Doctor beamed happily as the Brigadier gushed over his kitten. "Oh my, two kittens! Oh this is really too much! Now they'll be playmates and keep each other company. Here Fluffy III, you little darling!" Fluffy III ran down the tea table to join Fluffy II.  
  
Opening another box fastened with rubber bands, the Brigadier discovered yet another cat. "Gee," he said a bit less enthusiastic, "Three kittens! How nice! Hello, Fluffy IV!"  
  
Fluffy IV took a swipe at his mustache, then he out of his grip to play with the other kittens.  
  
"Glad you like it," the fourth Doctor said.  
  
The Brigadier reluctantly reached for yet another box and shook it experimentally. No noise emanated. He turned the it upside down, the lid fell off, a just awakened protesting kitten tumbled out.  
  
"Now, now," lectured the first Doctor, "that's no way to treat a kitten!"  
  
"Sorry," he said, "but four kittens. Really, Doctors, you shouldn't have! Go on, Fluffy V, join your friends." He pushed the cat down the table.  
  
The Brigadier had no desire to open more boxes, but he didn't want to offend anyone. Opening the next package, a shoe box with holes, a yellow kitten popped out, saw the Brigadier and promptly ran away frightened. "Hey! Come back here, Fluffy VI! Five kittens, oh my!" the Brigadier spluttered at a loss for words. He gingerly opened the last package. Sure enough, another cat jumped out. "SIX CATS!!!" the Brigadier cried. Fluffy VII skittered away.  
  
"It was the least I could do, considering how Fluffy and my TARDIS . . . " the second Doctor said awkwardly.  
  
"Doctors, you really shouldn't have done this. I mean, really . . . !" the Brigadier spluttered turning alarming shades of purple.  
  
"Now, Brigadier," Jo said hastily, pouring a cup of tea for him. "Drink this slowly and relax. Six kittens isn't so bad!"  
  
"Six! Six! Six kittens, six Doctors, six, six, six! Arghhhhh!" the Brigadier exploded. Jo shoved a tea biscuit into his mouth, and the Brigadier was forced to eat rather than yell.  
  
"Sergeant Benton, will you pour?" the third Doctor suggested hastily. Pouring the tea was too hazardous of a job for Jo. At least, if Sergeant Benton poured the tea, they would have a better chance of surviving the tea party. But Sergeant Benton was a bit dense. he filled all the tea cups--all fifty of them, that is. So, the party felt compelled to drink all the poured tea, which required everyone to keep moving places.  
  
The third Doctor was pleased to finally get a cup of tea. He shoveled the cup full of Cremora, stirred it, then turned to select a tea sandwich. Fluffy IV took the opportunity to stick his face in the tea cup and lap it up. The third Doctor was very ticked and yelled, "Fluffy IV, get out of my tea, or you will be the first time traveling cat: I'll kick you into next week!" He slammed his fist on the table.  
  
"Doctor!" interjected the Brigadier shocked, "Is that anyway to address a superior officer?"  
  
Further down the table, Jamie was having problems of his own. Fluffy III had discovered his hairy uncovered legs and decided that they made nifty scratching posts.  
  
"Ah'm going to stomp ya to bits, ya little . . . !" Jamie hollered midst the yelps of pain.  
  
"Now, now, Jamie," the second Doctor intervened, "you'll do no such a thing! We don't want to upset the Brigadier again, now do we?"  
  
Jamie grumbled incoherently and tried to unhook the black kitten. The urge to kill was almost irresistible. He returned the cat to the table from where it promptly jumped down and began its game with Jamie all over again.  
  
On the other end of the table, Nyssa prepared to bite daintily into her tea sandwich, when she was suddenly surrounded by three hungry kittens. They batted at her sandwich and she promptly dropped it, screeching loudly. Nyssa didn't like cats. Neither did her beloved Smarty, her beloved gerbil.  
  
Two places down, the sleepy white kitten curled up and went to sleep on Vicki's plate. She did not mind and continued eating.  
  
At the end of the table sat the sixth Doctor alone save the grey and white tabby he'd given the Brigadier. They were scarfing all the food. The cat munched happily along, drinking the Doctor's tea and sharing his sandwiches. Here was a cat after the Doctor's own hearts!  
  
Up near the Brigadier at the fifth Doctor, where he felt he was protected. he wanted to eat something, but the yellow kitten he had brought the Brigadier, as yellow as he was, was still braver than he and so ate his Fruit Loops and drank his tea. Fearful of being scratched, the fifth Doctor let the cat be.  
  
On the other side of the table sat the beleaguered Romana, who was frankly too ill to eat, considering the nauseating poetry the Master was quoting her, not to mention his nauseating smell. The Master had gotten on one knee to propose, when Romana rudely asked, "What's that all over your shirt?"  
  
"Oh my darling, oh my love, it's only eggs!" the Master replied, "Come away with me, marry me, it's now or never!"  
  
"Never!" retorted Romana.  
  
"But we're so perfect for one another. We could conquer the universe together. We could slaughter the Doctor together!" the Master replied.  
  
"I'll consider the latter proposal," Romana said brightly, "Now, tell me, how would you kill the one with the scarf?"  
  
"Well, my dear, the first thing I would do is . . ." the Master began.  
  
"Yes, yes," Romana said excitedly.  
  
Suddenly there was a commotion at the end of the table. Steven jumped up and started making distress noises. A couple of kittens had wandered over and discovered the Mascot. As he was covered in dry cream, the Mascot highly interested the kittens. They began roughly licking him.  
  
"Stop it! Stop it!" cried Steven distressed at the Mascot's fate, yet slightly frightened of the kittens. "Get them off of him! Oh Mascot, Mascot, are you alright?"  
  
The kittens were herded away, and Steven took the Mascot onto his lap for safekeeping. The tea party continued.  
  
And continued and continued and continued and continued for several hours until everyone was full, tired, talked out and thoroughly bored, yet unable to leave, because the guest of honor, the Brigadier was still going strong. The fifth Doctor decided that so bored was he, that he'd go check on poor Turlough and maybe wake him up. he slipped out unnoticed by all save Tegan, whose nose was the second largest part of her body. Her mouth was naturally the first.  
  
Out in the parking lot, she caught up with him and together they leaned over Turlough. "Should we?" asked Tegan, liking the peaceful personality of Turlough when he was unconscious.  
  
"We could always go back to the tea party," the Doctor countered.  
  
"Oh, alright," agreed Tegan.  
  
The fifth Doctor poured the cold milky tea, which he had brought just for this occasion, on Turlough's face. Turlough came to abruptly. He sat up and shook his head, then he got up.  
  
"Well, I suppose we should leave now," the Doctor said.  
  
"What about Nyssa?" asked Tegan.  
  
"What about her?" asked Turlough, nasty as ever.  
  
"Hmm, Tegan's right," the Doctor said, "I forgot completely.  
  
"You often do," snapped Tegan.  
  
The trio turned to walk back into UNIT to fetch Nyssa, but not before Turlough had snitched the orange cones that surrounded him. Walking across the car park, the young man gave a low whistle of appreciation.  
  
"Where? Where?" asked the Doctor excitedly.  
  
"Over there," Turlough said hooking his thumb at the yellow Edwardian roadster. "Ain't she a beaut! Wish she were mine! I bet she handles like a dream."  
  
"Oh, that old thing," the Doctor said depreciatively, "That's just Bessie. And she happens to be mine. An old present from the Brigadier. yes, she just purrs after I've rebuilt her. Does a hundred, hundred fifty easily."  
  
"Was that a present like the TV set in the TARDIS, eh? Your car! Now I've heard everything!" Turlough countered.  
  
"She is too mine! Why, if I had the keys . . ." the Doctor riffled through his pockets not finding them. He looked in the car. by some miracle the keys still hung in the ignition. Being hit eight times had slightly jarred the third Doctor's memory. "Ha," the fifth Doctor retorted in Turlough's face. "Hop in. I'll show what this baby can do!"  
  
Turlough and the Doctor clambered in. Tegan stood her ground and glared.  
  
"Come on, Tegan, just around the countryside, just to show Turlough," the Doctor pleaded.  
  
"No," returned Tegan, "I'm going back to the TARDIS with Nyssa. Get yourself out of this mess you're going to make."  
  
"Mess!" the Doctor said huffily, "I never make messes. We'll be back in a jiffy, no problem at all, just you wait and see." With that he started the engine, back out and drove off.  
  
Back at the tea party, the kittens had given out and fallen asleep in a clump on the middle of the table. The Brigadier leaned over and whispered in Sergeant Benton's ear:   
  
"Take these new recruits, Benton, and litter box train them. Oh, and you can put the litter pan in your office."  
  
Benton frowned. Why did he always get these jobs? Gathering the sleeping kittens carefully in his arms, he carried them out of the cafeteria.  
  
At this action, the Brigadier, all the Doctors and the companions present at the party took hope; maybe they might get to leave. But no such luck. The Brigadier still sat, smiling beneficently for about twenty minutes. Polly and the third Doctor returned to their nails. then snoring began to be heard. Everyone looked up hopeful. the Brigadier had fallen asleep! Now was their chance to escape quietly and not have to prolong their goodbyes to the UNIT staff. Chairs scraped the floor ever so quietly as everyone slowly and silently got up, crept out of the cafeteria and headed for the lab.  
  
Outside the laboratory, after everyone else had gone in, the Master once again knelt before Romana.  
  
"Will you not reconsider?" he begged.  
  
"No," she said, "Sorry. Bye." She made as to go into the lab. She slammed the door in his face. He opened the door and dashed into the lab and threw himself at her ankles. She ignored him.  
  
The Doctors were finally making their farewells to each other. Their chatter was suddenly interrupted by a loud crash. The fifth Doctor and Turlough, who was carrying several orange cones, hopped through the broken window, dashed over to their TARDIS, gasped a hasty "'Bye all!" and promptly nipped in. The sounds of dematerialization began.  
  
Dashing to the window, the third Doctor groaned in despair. Bessie was smashed into the Brigadier's car, totaling the latter. Everyone else dashed to the window to look., and the third Doctor, still retaining some presence of mind and sense of priorities, remember the suddenly the need for the dematerialization circuit. Disengaging from himself from the crowd, he slyly crept into the second Doctor's TARDIS.  
  
The dematerialization circuit in hand, the third Doctor crept out of the TARDIS into the second Doctor, flanked by the fourth and sixth Doctors.  
  
"Shame, shame, shame!" the second Doctor said, "Naughty boy, give me my dematerialization circuit back!"  
  
The third Doctor reluctantly handed it over. Would he never get off this mudball? The second Doctor took the circuit and herded his companions into the TARDIS and followed.  
  
"Goodbye," he said to the assembly, "And do try to mend your ways, you naughty little fairy, you!" His head disappeared and the door closed. A few moments later, the sound of dematerialization followed, and the second Doctor was off.  
  
The first, fourth, and sixth Doctors laughed at the third Doctor's distress.  
  
"Well, so long, old chaps. It's been nice meeting you, er, me, er again. Must be getting off though!" the sixth Doctor said jauntily. he hadn't seen Mel around for a long time and was thrilled by the prospect of getting away without her. After all, she was on Earth, relatively close to her own time, she'd be okay. But he wasn't sure that he would survive if she went with him. he put his key in the lock, opened it, and . . .  
  
A hand snaked out and grabbed him by the ear.  
  
"Ouch!" he cried as he was pulled bodily into the TARDIS. The door ominously slammed shut and the dematerialization noise reluctantly began. As the sixth Doctor's TARDIS faded, it almost seemed like an anguished cry echoed behind.  
  
The first Doctor had by this time hobbled to his TARDIS. "Come along Vicki, Steven," he ordered. The first Doctor was pleased to see the Mascot nowhere. Perhaps, they had seen the last of that stupid toy bear. Little did he know, the bear was secreted away in Steven's pocket to protect him from the hungry kittens. They all climbed aboard the TARDIS with cheery farewells.  
  
"Do behave yourselves," the first Doctor called, "I wouldn't like me in trouble. Goodbye, all!" The door shut, and soon this TARDIS, too, disappeared.  
  
Now all who remained in the lab were the third and fourth Doctors, Jo, Romana, and the Master, still clinging to Romana's ankles.  
  
"Well, I hate goodbyes," the fourth Doctor said, shaking the third Doctor's hand. "So, I won't say them. Jo." He tipped his hat to her. "Come on, Romana, time to go."  
  
"Hallelujah!" Romana said, "Bye now. It's been real!"  
  
"It's been real what?" Jo asked stupidly.  
  
Romana sighed, then freeing her ankles, jumped into the TARDIS. The door shut in the Master's face, and he began plummeling the doors frantically.  
  
"Romana, my love, come back! Romana!"  
  
Dematerialization began and soon the Master had nothing to bang on. Romana was gone.  
  
The Master turned to the remaining Doctor. "I hate you!" he said, "I hate all of you!"  
  
"But, Peter Pan, we are at last alone!" the Doctor said in a sickly sweet voice.  
  
"Argh! Not again!" the Master yelped and jumped out the window, running as fast as his legs could carry him.  
  
The Doctor turned and smiled at the confused Jo. "Well, that got rid of him. I knew it would."  
  
"Real what?" Jo repeated.  
  
The Doctor shook his head, walked across the lab, and went back to work on the TARDIS console.  
  
The fifth Doctor hurried set the coordinates for anywhere except UNIT before the third Doctor could get his key out, enter the TARDIS, and beat the heck out of him for smashing Bessie. The Doctor looked up from his work to catch his breath and found himself nose to nose with a brown ball of fur with beady black eyes. The Doctor shrieked loudly. The gerbil jumped from the console to the floor, and the Doctor jumped from the floor to the console. Tegan, Turlough, and Nyssa came running at his shrieks.  
  
"What is it, Doctor?" Nyssa queried delivering her one and only line perfectly.  
  
The Doctor pointed a shaky finger at the brown rodent, chewing the corner of Turlough's smelly T-shirt, lying on the floor.  
  
"Oh for pity's sake. It's only Nyssa's gerbil!" Tegan exploded.  
  
"But its got such beady eyes and . . . such teeth!" chattered the terrified Doctor.  
  
Turlough grabbed one of Sarah Jane Smith's very overdue library books conveniently propping up one side of the hatstand. he opened the book. The Doctor scrambled more and hit the materialization button. He clung to the time rotor as it oscillated up and down.  
  
"Smarty!" cried Nyssa, realizing too late what Turlough was up to. Turlough smashed the gerbil in a copy of Electronic Repairs Made Easy. Turlough was angry. The late Smartly had ruined his favorite shirt.  
  
The TARDIS then landed with a thump. The Doctor fell from the console. Finding themselves at a library, Turlough finally returned Sarah Jane's overdue book, while Tegan led the weeping Nyssa to their room.  
  
In the second Doctor's TARDIS, the Doctor fumbled with his dematerialization circuit controls. He looked at it perplexedly, turning it this way and that and finally shrugging his shoulders, shoved it into its slot. Miraculously, it fitted.  
  
"Are you sure you put it back in right?" asked Ben doubtfully.  
  
"Of course, Ben. What do you know of TARDIS circuitry anyway?" the Doctor asked nastily.  
  
Polly looked up from polishing her nails. "Well, what do know of it?" she asked sarcastically.  
  
"Hmph!" snorted the Doctor, "Oh ye of little faith . . ." He thoughtfully scratched his poison ivy.  
  
The time rotor slowed to a halt, and after checking the gauges, the Doctor smiled and opened the door. He bounced out of the TARDIS . . .  
  
Into the Brigadier's office! The Brigadier looked up from and important conference with Fluffy II through VII and a ball of yarn. He gathered the kittens protectively into his arms and shrieked.  
  
"Now, now, Brigadier," the second Doctor stammered, "So sorry to intrude, an honest mistake . . . !"  
He backed nervously into the TARDIS again and slammed the door shut. Diving under the console, he reslotted the circuit, then hit the dematerialization circuit button. They were off. In the background snickered three companions.  
  
The sixth Doctor grudgingly set the coordinates and dematerialization with Mel still inside of the TARDIS. He was not pleased that she had pulled him in by one ear in front of his former selves and besides, it hurt! One day, he swore, she would regret it. But as for today . . .  
  
Mel handed the Doctor a broom and a dustpan. "Clean up this mess!" she ordered, "I can't believe you broke my health food blender, you twit!"  
  
She stood over him as he cleaned up the broken glass in the console room caused by his nonchalant chunking of the TARDIS Manual, then when he was finished, she ordered, "Spread 'em, Doc!"  
"Do what?" he replied not understanding her.  
  
"Turn around and put your hands on the console. I want to check your pockets!" said Mel.  
  
The Doctor looked coldly at her. When he found out who let her back into the TARDIS . . . "I'll do no such a thing," he replied icily. "Whose TARDIS is this, dear?"  
  
"You will do as ordered!" Mel barked. he shook his head. Mel promptly decked him. He did a graceful half-turn and fell heavily on the console, mercifully not blowing it up in the process, dazed. Mel, not quite gingerly, spread his arms and armed with her industrial size Hefty garbage bag, Mel found an amazing assortment of junk food: eleven packs of Twinkies, handfuls of M & M's, seven Three Musketeers, two very nasty fuzzy eclairs, and a melting Eskimo Pie. An hour later, she had finished her job.  
  
The Doctor regained consciousness soon after his pockets had been so rudely invaded, and he was not happy. Mel left the console room, the Doctor still screaming after her. At such moments, Mel did what she usually did in these situations concerning the Doctor; she ignored him.  
  
Once the inner doors closed, the Doctor reached slyly into his left boot and pulled out a slightly melted Snickers. He chuckled evilly and bit into the candy bar with vengeance.  
  
"Ha!" snorted the Doctor, "You didn't get them all!"  
  
At the console, the first Doctor puttered happily. It looked as if he might get to enjoy himself now. The Mascot appeared to be gone.  
  
Steven joined him at the console and patted his pockets for the Mascot, so as to entertain himself and to better annoy the techy old Doctor. Patting one pocket then another, a sudden panic hit him as he realized the Mascot was gone. Steven began to jump up and down and waving his arms crying, "The Mascot! The Mascot! He's been left behind! We've got to go back and get him. Oh, Mascot, Mascot!"  
The Doctor suppressed a smile. This is what he had been waiting for. "My dear boy, calm down. Calm down. I'm terribly sorry, but we can't go back, you know that! The TARDIS cannot return to a time and place once it had landed there already. I'm very afraid that you must pull yourself together about the Mascot. I'm sure he'll be well taken care of and . . . " he chattered on happily, so glad was he to be rid of the Mascot.  
  
"Wait a minute," Vicki interrupted, "What's this?" She stoop behind the old clock and fished out the Mascot, a little dusty, but otherwise unharmed.  
  
"Here's the Mascot, Steven. He must have fallen out of your pocket and gotten kicked behind the clock. He didn't get left behind at all," she told him.  
  
Steven grabbed the Mascot in ecstasy and planted several loving kisses on him. He embraced the Mascot tenderly.  
  
The Doctor watched this and sighed. At his age, he ought to get a break now and then.  
  
The fourth Doctor set the coordinates of his TARDIS for the nearest post office. Then taking out a large envelope, he prepared to address it.  
  
"Doctor, what are you doing?" Romana queried.  
  
"Oh, just sending off a present to my dear old companion Sarah Jane," the Doctor replied cheerfully.  
  
"What exactly is in that envelope, Doctor, or do I dare ask?" Romana said cautiously.  
  
The Doctor leaned over and whispered in her ear.  
  
"Doctor!" she cried shocked, "That's terrible! Don't send Fluffy to poor Sarah Jane!"  
  
The Doctor chuckled uncontrollable. This was undoubtedly his best prank that he had pulled in a long time. Of course, it was always possible that Sarah Jane might take it in the wrong spirit. Oh well, he thought, if she had no sense of humor . . . and addressed the envelope in his large scrawling hand: "Sarah Jane Smith, South Croydon, London". He licked the strip of stamps, hoped the postage was sufficient, popped out of the TARDIS and made as to mail the envelope. He hesitated a moment, unsure, then added across the back of the envelope, "Love, the Doctor."  
  
Back at UNIT, the third Doctor was once again working on the TARDIS console, removed from the TARDIS and sitting in the middle of the lab. The floor was again littered with tools and cables and wires and gadgets. Under the console, the Doctor worked busily. It was at this moment that Jo trotted in carrying a heavily laden tea-tray. "Tea time!" she called, then tripped over the nearest cable, and Jo, tea tray, and contents went flying. The Doctor, though, instead of looking up, covered his head and ducked behind the console. The teapot smashed harmlessly into the wall. The Doctor heaved a sigh of relief-- he had no desire to go through all of that again and made a mental not to allow Jo to carry heavy dangerous things anymore, then he went back to work.  
  
THE END!  
  
  
  
And that's the end of that! Thank goodness. Each time I retype this story, I am gladder when its over!! :) Anyway, thanks so much to you folks who read this story! It was greatly appreciated. 


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